When I get upset
I use to be a rage machine. Literally. I would get upset about small things, big things, medium size things, everything would make me upset. I was touchy. Some might say that the correct word is “intolerant”, I say maybe…
Fortunately for the most part, I have outgrown my touchiness and probably it takes a lot of work to get me upset (this is not a challenge), some of it has to do with the fact that I approach most of the things with sense of humour and some of it has to do with the way I perceive the world now, even though sometimes I just fall back on getting upset for small things. My computer freezing or the Internet not working still gets me upset… Not all the times but more often that I would like.
I get upset when expectations are not met. That’s in a nutshell. Probably how upset I get depends on how far from my expectations the result is. I can’t trick my expectations, I can’t change my expectations nor I can change how I react when my expectations are not met. What can I change then?
The way I see it, expectations are a way to compare, I have expectations because I have a point of reference. I can change my point of reference, that I can do, that is to say that I can change my perspective. That doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t be upset though, I will probably be a bit upset but overall I won’t probably duel over it for too long. At least that’s what happens now the majority of the time, I haven’t had a rage outburst in long time, is not like I was particularly crazy about expressing my anger and frustration, but sometimes I did yell at people, I did mistreated a lot of people because of it and I did some (rarely) physical aggression towards myself, like hitting tables and stuff like that, thinking about it, I just realized that is not that I am hitting the table, but rather I am hitting myself…
Nowadays, I think I let go quite easily and by easy I mean that I won’t probably care too much about it for a long period of time, which is basically the biggest difference, I don’t get hung up on things that often, in fact probably rarely I do.
I probably learned how to do this thanks to playing poker, I can think of millions of reasons of why, but basically comes down to competition and a desire to be better. To do “right” what other people are not properly doing was probably a good motivator. What I am saying, in other words is that probably a lot of people let their emotions affect their decisions and when you factor anger and frustration in your decisions almost always the decision is going to be far from optimal. That’s a crazy circle when you think about it. When your expectations are to get closer to optimal as possible and you end up doing the complete opposite, just doing that will increase anger and frustration….
I could go on a philosophical rant about what is optimal and what expectations are but it would be a really long and boring rant…
I have also notice that I have been taking deep breaths when I am close to get upset, I do think deep breaths help but is not like a magical thing. I probably do them unconsciously, is a way of saying (probably) “Is not important, get over it, quick!”. Which is probably a different way to show anger, to let it go through that deep breath…
Sometimes, one deep breath is not enough. I have tried meditation but I have failed miserably I can’t think of a moment where I stayed “still” for more than 5 minutes… A shower for me is a very good way of meditation, swimming pools are also a great way to meditate and by meditation I mean to do physically nothing, just let the brain do the talk…