I’ve tried the serenity prayer without god and I’m reading the subtle art of not giving a f*ck, but it’s not enough. The book is good though.
There are still moments when people really piss me off and while I’d like that not to affect me, my first instinct is still to feel anger and to hate the jackass making my life or work difficult. Sometimes I’d like to punch him in the face.
It could be the plumber who doesn’t come on the agreed day, the technician who ‘repaired’ a tv set, only to have the same issue the next day, a coworker who keeps yelling when I’m trying to work and even after asking him not to be loud, blatantly ignores me or coworkers who importunate me with stupid questions about my weekend.
A strategy I’m going to use now at the workplace is to ignore every non related job question from these people and only answer when they ask something job related. As for the plumber, the hate usually subsides after 2 days, but I’d like to be more resilient, not to jump to anger and hate so easily.
It’s like I’m emotionally very easy to trigger.
I don’t know if you agree with this sentence: A person who yells does it because he doesn’t have power to modify a situation to his advantage, because he is powerless.
This is how I feel sometimes.
If you’re cynical in your rumination then there isn’t much to ruminate about.
Cynicism is a vent. It’s cathartic where is truthful. There’s no point being angry “at god”, there isn’t one there. You can be angry at people, but only if it serves you. If the anger is pointless it’s easier to discard it. If it has a point (you’re going to complain to someone’s superior) then it can be a useful motivator. I hate discomfort, so I work until I’m comfortable. I expect people to be self serving (this doesn’t require any energy on my part) and I’m pleasantly surprised when they’re not. Neither an I self serving, when I do things for others it feels like I’m sticking two fingers up at a system that would rather I’m a self centred ghoulish consumer. I guess it could be summed up as having very low expectations. But rather than being depressing I find it has the effect of creating joy in everyday mundane things.