Day 214: Understanding Human Behavior: Awesome Series part 1

 

 

Understanding Human Behavior: Awesome Series is a series were I will write about some of the silly things we do as humans. Most of the time human behavior can be interesting and what makes it even more interesting is the fact that we ourselves do not even know or understand why we do certain things.

Ever became so angry and started yapping things at someone only to ask yourself “why did I say those things?”. Or how about simply things like why you act certain ways or like and dislike things? Most of us simply do not know ourselves – at all.

Today I observed a point in a particular person – Now, we humans are actually the same so when I see a point in someone I see it as myself doing it, putting myself in that persons shoes. It is the only way to really understand the reason for the anger and not to judge the person. So when I write these things instead of writing “they” I am writing “Me/I”.

Let me begin then with one of the silly things we do – Being unnecessarily mean.

Now there can be many reasons for being mean, but one of them has to do with the word inadequacy. Let’s say for example I feel inadequate or inferior – there are two possible outflows here in terms of behavior. One is being generally shy and the other is trying very hard to somehow make up for being inadequate. The second behavior can result in me being mean. Like for example trying to present myself as being better/superior to others by generally being mean whenever the opportunity arrives. This is basically silly human behavior.

It is silly, because I am trying to present myself as superior to others, because I feel inferior wihout ever looking at why I feel inferior. It like trying to correct a problem with a problem. The real issue here is that I feel inferior and so instead of asking myself WHY do I feel inferior I resort to being mean to others to get out of inferiority. The most effective method to get rid of feeling inferior would be in the understanding of How and WHY it was created in the first place. The feeling was created my ME. I alone am responsible for what I feel – I actually create it. And so I can change it. Next I will go into the HOW.

Day 213 - At your Last Breath – what will you say? What would you have Changed?

 

People say that life is short. Even though it is the longest thing you’ll ever experience – it is actually quite short. There never seems to be enough time to do all the things that you would like to. I am now 26 years old which means I have basically lived half my life span already give or take. There are 26 years that I will not be able to get back – it’s gone.

A thing we got used to since being born is Time. Time is always there. When I was a kid I did not worry about thing like time, it was always there. I woke up to a new day every day. I knew that when I go to bed and sleep there will be another day coming on the morrow. Now that I am getting older I realize that Time will not always be there. One day I will die – I will breathe out my last breathe (and fart, most likely) and my body will return to the earth in ashen form. And when that day comes what will I say to myself as I look at back at my life and how I lived it?

I cannot know what the next 26 years will bring – I might not even live that long, I could die tomorrow or the next day or maybe I live till I am old and wrinkled. In the End it really doesn’t matter how long I have left on this earth – All that matters is what I do with the time that I have.

Which brings me to my point here – The fact is that one we will all die and it is as certain as it is inevitable. This does not mean it is something to worry about though, but instead of living life as if there will be a tomorrow rather live it as if there is no tomorrow. I sometimes with certain things postpone it and say to myself I will do it some other day, and then before I know it a few weeks have already gone. There will not always be ‘another day’. My time will eventually run out so instead of waiting till the day I die why not rather start living as if there is not tomorrow.

When the day comes that I die I want to able to look back at my life and say “YES! I used my time the best I could”. Wouldn’t you?

Day 212 - Can I Live without Frustration?

 

Anger, frustration and irritation – these fall into the same category, but they are all different. You can be frustrated, because you are irritated at the anger you experiencing. Today I am going to look specifically at the word Frustration. So what is frustration exactly? How do you get frustrated?

Simply put – frustration is when you have an expectation of how something should be and when it does not meet that expectation you become frustrated. So when you at it the cause of frustration is expectation.

Let’s say that today I am going to fix a tap that is a bit loose. The tap is attached to the sink and I see that the reason it is loose is because of a nut that is not tight. To fix this I would have to tighten the nut – I conclude that this task should be quick and simple. I get my spanner and go under the sink and encounter a big problem – my spanner cannot reach the nut, because there is no space to put my spanner. Since I do not have any other tool that can fit there I will have to use my hands.. So I use my hands only to find I cannot tighten the bolt enough by hand. By now I am getting frustrated, because the task is not simple or quick as I previously thought it would be.

The problem above is that I had an expectation before I started the task. We always have an expectation of how something should be, but reality is allot different from imagination. We cannot always see the outcome of something and having expectations you are setting yourself up for frustration.

Another example would be relationships. This a big one, because when entering a relationship you have expectations. Not only you, but the other person you are in relationship with also has expectations. So now you have 2 people with expectations and when they do not meet you get quite allot of frustration.

Frustration and expectation go hand in hand. To me more specific here – unrealistic expectations are the problem. When we look at something we use imagination and personal influences so when that meets reality we soon find out they are not the same. This physical reality is allot different from our mind/imagination.

So when you look at something like a simple repair job you can assess what the likely cause is and go about repairing it according to that, but sometimes you won’t see the whole picture and the tasks will be more difficult or take longer than you previously thought, but to get all frustrated will change nothing. The only thing frustration does is hurt you and sometimes it will hurt you physically – like trying to hammer in a stubborn nail while being frustrated at the nail will most likely cause you to hammer your thumb.

The most effective thing when you are doing something or about to do something is to let go of any and all expectations – you cannot know the full extent of the tasks ahead of you. You can prepare yourself as effectively as you are able yes, but expectations are useless.

All in all the key to get Rid of future frustrations is to let go of expectations.

Day 211 - Does it really matter what others think of you? Really?

 

Today I am going to write about that urge we humans get to defend ourselves. Not from a physical attack, but specifically when someone says something about you that is not true.

Things like this happen – someone will say something about you that is not true and the reaction is usually you getting really angry. An example would work better: Let’s say it is my responsibility to keep a swimming pool clean. So for a few months I keep this swimming pool sparkling clean – it is so clean that you might think there is no water in there. This task becomes a reflection of who I am where I take pride in how good of a job I am doing at keeping this pool clean. Then one day somebody comes to me and say that I am not keeping the pool clean and not doing a proper job. My reaction would go something like this: Heart rate rising along with the anger bubbling up inside and going on the defensive by attacking the person.

Now the thing is that I know for a fact that I am doing a good job and what the person is saying is simply not true, but despite that I will still go into a massive reaction and get all angry at the person. It is that reaction I am writing about today – when someone says something about you that you now is not true, but still react with anger and a need to defend your “honor” so to speak.

This is a simple example. When you really look at this situation there is no need to get all angry at the person, there is no need to defend yourself even, yet so many of us do this. It does not matter what the other person thinks about you – all that matters is how you see yourself. Even after the whole event you will go into backchat and replay the event in your head where you fight with the other person and make yourself seem better than the other all the while generating a whole lot of anger within yourself. Not necessary!

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with anger when somebody tell me something about myself that is not true.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to immediately want to defend myself and attacking the person verbally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be directed by the anger and allow it to influence myself and my words where I react according to how I feel.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to after the event create thoughts where I replay the event in my head and fight the person and place myself as the better person that always wins the argument.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that it is the other person who Is responsible for my reaction.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that I am the one who created the anger and reactions that followed within myself and therefor I cannot blame any other person or source outside myself.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that there is no need to defend myself, because I know who I am and what I did and what others think of me is not important.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that becoming angry and going into an attack mode is not the only solution – that staying calm and stable and explaining the situation to the other person would be a more effective method, because then I would be directing the situation instead of me being directed by anger.

I commit myself to when somebody says something to me that is not true and I become angry to stop. Instead I breathe and realize that it doesn’t matter what others think or believe of me – I know who I am and what I do.

I commit myself to when I start replaying the event in my head and create backchat to stop – instead I realize that what happened is in the past and to create anger over something I cannot change is pointless.

I commit myself to realize that I am always responsible for my own reactions and I cannot blame any other person.