I received fantastic news amidst an acrid plight. I was
literally seething and it took me 19 minutes to process the good tidings. I was
going crook trying to contain the whole situation of my surroundings.
Anger is an excellent impetus for change, however, it’s not
the change itself. And once I realized that the people who pissed me off
weren’t going to change on behalf of my internal rage with their actions, I
realized that I was the one who had to change. I had to reconsider and reboot
this precious little gem called perspective—the slant from which I interpreted
these people who vexed me off so much.
That process began and ended with one simple question: How
are these people any different from me?
Every single one of us is human, and so we’re all more or
less alike in our biological tendencies rooted in progress in the face of
obstacles—our commonalities under this human condition. And because of this
condition, we are unavoidably subject to our experiences; no one and nothing
exists in isolation as we’re all affected by everything with which we come into
contact, for better and for worse. And though our individuality makes it so
that each of us interprets our experiences to manifest in uniquely tailored
ways, the purposes behind those interpretations and manifestations all come
down to survival. To working with the circumstances and pressing onward, even
if “pressing onward” doesn’t manifest in the most beneficial way.
I’ve learned that when people piss me off, there’s no use in
staying pissed off at them for more than about a minute. There is, however, a
world of good in shifting my perspective to one of compassion, and it goes
something like this:
“You piss me off. What you’re doing (obsessing over
yourself/committing crimes and acts of hatred/bullying/hurting
people/complaining about nothing/seeking power for no real reason/etc.) makes
me angry and my insides are screaming at you for it. However, I understand that
you are this way and you do this for a reason—perhaps for the same reasons I am
the way I am and I do the things I do. We’re different, and so we react to
those reasons differently; but we’re the same in that we’re just trying to
press onward from wherever it was that something went wrong.”
Anger makes you feel powerful
Since anger can’t *poof* the situation into what we want it
to be, we turn toward empowerment. We allow our anger to be our authority.
See, our need for
control is essentially a power struggle with the rest of the world. Our
gremlins want us to be in control of everything internal and external. And when
we aren’t in control, our gremlins feel threatened, as if someone or something
is trying to take away our power.
But superiority is an illusion. We’ll never have it. Which
just perpetuates our anger.
So we choose to hold steadfast onto this notion that a
display of anger instills power, fear, authority over circumstance and people.
And when someone pisses us off, we choose anger as our weapon in a desperate
attempt to salvage our self-worth.
Yet we quickly find that anger isn’t worth much at all.
The most powerful
thing you can do
When someone pisses you off, expressing anger will not prove
your superiority. It will only leave you powerless to the situation and cast
you into a deep hole of self-loathing.
But I know something you can do. Something that will make
you the most powerful person in your life.
Ok, here it is.
This is the most powerful thing you can do when someone
pisses you off:
- Don’t think about that person.
- Don’t let that person occupy any real estate in your mind.
- Don’t allow that person to occupy a vacancy in your thought stream.
- Don’t keep that person alive and real in your life.
- Mentally let that person go.
We say that deceased people “live on” when we remember them.
We visit graves, we play their favorite song, we look at a photo of them.
But they are not alive physically. Their body no longer
exists on the earth in the same form as when we knew them. Regardless of our
belief of what happens to people when they die, they remain part of our reality
simply because we think of them.
Same goes for the living.
Whenever we think of a person, we keep that person alive in
our minds.
Therefore, if the presence of someone is weighing on you,
release that person from your thoughts. Then they’ll no longer be present.
To be clear, you’re not killing anyone. You are not a
murder. I can it a self cleanse.
Okay, just to be very clear to my more literal readers, I’m
not suggesting that we kill people in our thoughts.
I repeat: I am not suggesting, insinuating, recommending, or
anything else thereof, that we kill people in our thoughts or think about
killing people.
Phewks, I think that was a decent enough disclaimer…
Not thinking of someone releases the control their presence
has on our thoughts. And if they aren’t physically present in front of us, then
they aren’t actually present at all.
Maybe this is getting too deep, too abstract. I’ll back up.
When you allow
someone to occupy your mind, you run the risk of victimizing yourself to their
words and actions instead of taking responsibility for yourself. You run the
risk of letting that person control the way you feel instead of controlling
your feelings yourself.
By releasing someone from thought, forbidding them from
occupying your precious mental real estate, you make a conscious choice to
block any related incoming or outgoing negativity. You essentially take a
leadership role in your life and prevent your circumstances from disturbing
your inner peace and self-worth.
The Most Powerful Thing You Can Do When Someone Pisses You
Off - Happy Life
REFLECT
Think about how you typically react when you feel angry.
Is your reaction productive? rational? worth feeling that
way?
Take some time to really think about how you react whenever
something doesn’t go your way. Think about past times when you became angry and
didn’t handle yourself well. Then think about times when you became angry or
dissatisfied and did handle yourself well.
Think about how you felt in each situation and what you
could have done differently. Think about what worked and what you should
continue doing.
And above all, think about anger in general and what it
means to harbor it.
Think about where anger comes from, where it’s rooted, and
why it grows.
And whenever you find yourself getting heated up, don’t
think of anything at all.
Cheers
It’s a beautiful Day
