stop being so angry

I get angry towards the end of the day when technology fails (or my fingers hit the wrong key), the light’s bad and my back/shoulders ache because I’ve not done my exercises.

I get up and go for a walk.

1) Love it
2) Change it
3) Leave it

If 1 then all is good.
If not 1 then do 2.
If 2 doesn’t improve it then do 3.

This applies to almost every life choice : Relationships, Jobs, Cars, Bikes…

Two things.

1) Don’t sweat the small stuff.

2) It’s all small stuff.

Learning not to give a shite what others – especially strangers – think was an epiphany for me. This is key:

Turns out I was wrong, someone did find them funny – he did! He’d laugh his arse off, not giving a single shit whether we found it funny or not.

As a kid you wonder why your dad goes out “dressed like that” – thing his, he’s worked out that the answer to “people will look at you” is “so what?” No-one died, no-one got hurt. Who really gives a crap whether someone you’ll never see again thinks “wow, that’s a daft hat?”

The other thing I realised was that a constant source of incandescent rage was a couple of toxic people in my life. “Friends” that were really born of circumstance, you went to school with them or some such. Life’s too short to put up with that crap, get shut of them and your life will be immeasurably better.

steveoath – Member

So, i get wound up at the slightest thing and for the sake of my blood pressure I need to reign it in. Can you actually change your behaviour like this? I don’t mean just bottling everything up until something goes “pop”. How do you stay calm?

Nothing wrong with you going Viking style berserker.

I mean there is no room in your society to breath without someone trying to tell you that you are wrong.

You don’t stay clam you get even.

Go berserk!

(note: exclusion clause you only do this when you are totally intoxicated and with no control over your own mind – drink as many pints as you can now!)

I gave up on the notion of promotion at work last year as I was not prepared to make the sacrifices it required. My ambitions now are to do 10 laps at the Bontrager 12 hour solo, go cycle touring with the kids more, extend my workshop so it has room for a sofa and for tonight to process a load of logs with a chainsaw and axe.
I feel much more satisfied and couldn’t think what to spend extra money on anyway. I guess I’m saying that most stress in our lives is an endless pursuit of status and things that lose their value as soon as acquired and fuel our anger subsequently – let it go and embrace being mildly successful (I do want a new MTB though).

For what it is worth, my blood pressure improved noticeably when I stopped listening to the Today Programme in the morning.

+1

Don’t watch / listen to any news now, all the interviewers seem to see it as their duty to find confrontation / contradiction where none exists. Just read the news online these days….