September 23, 2005
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What is it that makes someone a pain in the arse?
We all have (or have had) people in our lives who are a pain in the arse– for some reason or other, they just seem able to trigger our “frustration response,” or they have some set of “mystifying” traits that we just can’t wrap ourselves around, no matter how hard we try, or how well-balanced we think we are.
Actually…..
I don’t really care about what makes someone “difficult” for us to deal with– I am more interested in our own inner processes, and the best ways to deal with these situations.
I’ve read an awful lot of “advice” to the effect that whenever someone does something that feels really annoying to me, it actually means that I am reacting to something about myself that I don’t like. There’s a lot of psychobabble about how– when that moment of annoyance arises– it’s an invitation to look at myself, and learn about something that’s an issue in me, a bad habit of mine, if you will.
I dunno….
It strikes me there’s an awful lot of moose dung buried there.
Along with an unhealthy opportunity for a bunch of New-Agey bliss ninnies to allow themselves to remain in the state of being ”the eternal abuse victim.”
If I see someone have a fit of rage, and kick his dog (which was the closest object to his lawnmower which wouldn’t start), and I feel upset– what “issue” of mine does that point to?
When I get frustrated at the friend who has lost her keys for the 43rd time, and calls me to help her find them, what “issue” of mine am I being directed to look at?
Maybe I am being insensitive here, or maybe I just don’t “get” it, but these kinds of things strike me as having only the faintest trace of difference from situations in which abused people sit around and “forgive” their abusers because they “had a difficult childhood,” thus enabling rather than ending the cycle of abuse.
But I’ve sortof wandered off topic a bit. Inner thought processes. I am trying to wrap myself around this notion of other people’s “annoying” habits being about my issues.
When I examine actions and behaviors of others that annoy me, I find only things that I don’t choose to do, not things that I do do, and which annoy me about myself. I generally choose constructive actions over destructive actions, and the actions I “don’t like” tend to be destructive.
As an example, my ex ran chronically late. If we were due to be somewhere for an appointment/dinner at 5:00, she’d start getting ready at 4:30. She “believed” that getting ready would take her 15 minutes, and the drive time would be 15 minutes. However, the historical reality was that she could rarely– if ever– get ready in less than 45 minutes, and drive time of 15 minutes was only realistic on Sunday mornings with no traffic. So we’d end up arriving 45 minutes late, either to annoyed foot tapping, or to people having started without us. Then, she’d often “react” to people’s annoyance– and on the way home she’d have a discussion (monologue) about how those people didn’t “understand” and we weren’t really “that late,” and they are “idiots” for not being more understanding. Plus my own “editorial” add-on comment– if I didn’t agree with her assessment, I wasn’t “supportive,” and obviously “didn’t love her.”
The point here, however, isn’t the behavior, but how said behavior becomes about “my issues.” Either I have a monumental blind spot, or there’s a bunch of bullshyghte being floated in the guise of “being evolved.”
I can think of a bunch of thoughts I would have at such times (and pretty much any time this “type” of thing annoys me):
I don’t like being late, because it feels to me like I am disrespecting other people, specifically by not honoring their time as having “value.” Acts that strike me as disrespectful almost always annoy me. Especially if they are “habitual,” as opposed to “accidental.”
But if we get back to the original notion that I am supposedly responding to something about myself that doesn’t make sense… I still don’t “get” it. I didn’t like my ex’s chronic tardiness… but I am not someone who runs late, so how can I possibly be responding to something about me, that I don’t do? And I didn’t like the feeling of disrespect– but I go to great lengths to respect other people’s time and space– so I don’t get how it’s something about me I don’t like. Unless…. the issue is that I am disrespecting her trait/desire of “lateness,” and I don’t like my own disrespect of that? And I don’t like that I don’t respect the guy with the lawnmower kicking his dog? Which leads me right back to not “respecting” someone’s “difficult life” because they want to whack me over the head with a baseball bat?
Huh? I still don’t get it.
It becomes a circular argument I could expound on for many and varied iterations.
Ultimately, I think the New-Age bliss ninnies can go overboard in service of what they believe to be “tolerance,” by selling part of their own basic truth down the river. Even when you LIVE the paradigm of nonduality, in which there is no separate “good” or “bad,” you still have choice. When you abandon “choice,” you run the risk of crossing over from a place of love to a place of “spiritual idiocy.” One of my Teachers once illustrated this with the “angry dog” example.
You may stand next to an angry dog who barks constantly, and bites your leg to shreds every day, no matter what you say or do. Maybe we’ll agree that kicking the dog, or beating it is “unevolved.” Maybe we’ll even agree that saying “forking dumbass dawg” and running away is unevolved. Maybe we’ll also agree that it is Right Action to love the dog exactly as it is, in all its dogness. There is no need to blame the dog, because it is precisely as it should be. But even so, you also have choice. And a duty to exercise that choice in service of peace and love, rather than to idly sit in apathy, mislabelled as peace. You have a choice to step over on the other side of the fence where the dog cannot bite you any longer– still loving the dog for its perfect dogness. Whereas it may look “noble,” we don’t bring an end to suffering by allowing others to contribute to our own suffering.
In other news… after three days of still stifling heat, a breeze has suddenly started out of the northeast, as some of the outermost bands of Rita’s circulation start to move into the region. A high gray film of clouds gives the sky a slightly brownish cast. As it looks right now, we will be on the “dry, downwind side” of the eye.
Comments (12)
Ha! You have no idea how timely your post is!
Ha!
You hit the nail on the head for me. When someone annoys me, it’s almost never really about them. It’s about my response to them. I serve us all better if I fess up to that, otherwise I just end up going in these spirals of bad karma.
I think the psychology of life, and some less fitting ideas don’t work in all situations. It very often fits, for example when someone is the jealous type that they themselves have the fear that they might step out on that person they focus their jealous on, not that the one who is being accused is the problem. So maybe, it’s just that you’re looking at this all wrong. You are the outsider in your lateness example, a tag-along to the experience. You were not your wife. Your wife’s reaction to how the hosts’ reacted to her lateness is a better situation to apply that logic to. There was something in HER that she needed to look at, not something in YOU that you needed to look at just having merely witnessed it. However, the reaction you may have had to her ranting in the car on the way home, might be something you could look at. That topic is not her being late. That topic is different. that’s something you have to decide, but I’m thinking along the lines of “why do I get the fallout from this shit?” And sometimes the fear that is revealed is not linearly related to the situation that produced it (which validates your confusion even more on this psychology tidbit). “Why do I get the fallout from this shit?” You answer it.
Oh you speak my mind in this post!! (being late is definitely one of my pet peeves for the very same reasons!)
I think there is a marked difference between justified anger (as you say here) and unprovoked anger. I have often seen and admit to saying that when you are attacked in an unprovoked manner that it is not something about you, but rather something negative in the attacker. But I agree with you, these examples you provide are not what I mean when I say that to someone or to myself, for that matter. Instead perhaps I should clarify it more or just shut up
Interesting blog…
Excellent post. I go around with circular arguments like that in my head all the time. I have to keep reminding myself that sometimes it’s okay not to love something if you don’t like it and that being angry is not a horrible thing either.
If I point my forefinger to someone else, accusingly, then my remaining three fingers that lie flat on the palm of my hand, are pointing right to myself. That’s what I was reminded of, when I read what you said about being annoyed at someone else’s action. Recently, I was being annoyed at someone’s lack of reciprocity, or rather, what I perceived to be that. Later on, I realized that what really annoyed me, was not the other person’s behavior, but the fact that I was expecting, almost demanding a response of someone who didn’t own me any in the first place. Excellent entry, Peter!
Not only choices, but choice of reaction. This is a little off the bend, but I have also noticed that, the traits I don’t particularly like in myself, we greatly dislike in that other person, and our reactions can be knee-jerk negative. (Of course, this doesn’t apply to the ‘punctuality’ issue). Most interesting post; I can see where this is a subject that could go in endless circles.
AHA! I knew we’d have a dilemma sooner or later. (Just in regards to one item heyah . . .)
I’m a chronic procrastinator, and while I didn’t have too many issues with it, most everyone around me does.
It’s disturbing to consider the possibility I don’t view others time as valuable, I have often blamed this bad behavior on my lack of time organization.
I certainly don’t bitch about how insensetive everyone else is around me each time I am late. I KNOW it’s my own damned fault.
The bottom line is this, if I don’t HAVE to be on time for something, I typically am not.
If I am catching a plane, going to a movie, taking someone to hospital or if the being on time is relevant to someone ELSE, then I’m your guy. My family and friends typically tack on fifteen minutes to each event we attend. We’re often early – - which, I suppose, is better than being late.
HOWEVER, I will be late to my own funeral.
I totally identify with what you’re saying….as a teacher it makes me so angry that the simplest of manners, courtesy are not only forgotten but not taught in families…I would die if my children had the horrid manners and behaviour of most of my students…I often correct my 17 yr old because of this issue….it is my problem but it stems from what should be considred natural …….Like being late….like thinking other people are respondsible for you, your things, and getting you out of jams…my favourite is the people who believe the world owes them everything just because they’re born, they do not lift a finger to do anything, for themselves or anyone else, but go on and on about how they’re being screwed over……..I don’t know the answer….besides teaching children manners….which I try to do, but there is so much schools can do, we can’t be parents too……..’til the next
Recently at my own blog I’ve been rhapsodizing, for the second or third time, about the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know!?” That flick is about as New Age-y as things get, and yes, I do believe that when irritations get to me, it’s more my issue than those of the irritators. This is not to say that the irritators are blameless. That would be ridiculous. But my reactions are my own, and I can have mastery of them, if I choose. And I can do more good in the world by keeping a positive outlook. For example, in encountering a dog-kicker whose lawn mower wouldn’t start, I would like to think I’d be able to react as follows:
“Good morning, sir!” [with a smile]
And if I get a pleasant enough answer back, engage him with a couple of more sentences before adding, “You know, it wasn’t your dog’s fault that the lawn mower wouldn’t start. Do you think you owe him an apology?”
But if instead I get a “What’s good about it?” reply, I might get into remonstrating mode just a bit quicker.
That’s just kind of off the top of the head of a New Age-y bliss ninny, who is speaking as if he behaves in as ideal a manner as he wishes he could.
In the real world, I tend to be more in agreement with you than you might have imagined, if you read this nonsense I just spent some time writing. Good heavens, I’m in a disagreeable mood today. Ahem. My issue, not yours.
Yeah, I always though that crap about not liking someone else’s traits pointing to your own shortcomings was a bunch of hooey. What I can’t believe is how many people just buy into it. I mean, what all-knowing Oz came up with that crap? Why does every negative emotion we experience have to be our “fault”, and something that we should be able to rationalize away? Sometimes people are jerks. I may be a jerk too, but that’s not what makes them their own special sort of jerk. I don’t know if this made sense or not, but as you know my brain is deteriorating into mush at an alarming rate.