Originally posted on Facebook HERE
Why doesn’t life come with a manual? Why are there people in our lives we can’t stand to be around? Why are so many people so rude, and seemingly clueless about it at the same time? These are some of the things on my mind today. Have you ever flown on an airplane? Well, if you fly with any regularity you might start wondering how we exist at all without killing each other. Airports and airplanes can be a lesson in tolerance, to be sure. You’ll have to deal with the guy who brings his own food on the plane – which will always be a loud, stinky, messy meal of unknown origin. Or the family of banshee kids that they have no control over. Or the guy in front of you leaning his seat back, or constantly going into the overhead compartment to get something he forgot, or getting up and down to walk the aisle, go to the bathroom, visit with a friend not seated near him… impatient people getting on the plane, impatient people getting off the plane… ugh. Then there’s always someone or other people in our lives that we just don’t like at all, but for whatever reason we see them on a regular basis. Either they’re family members, we work with them, or they hang out at a place we frequent and we run into them more than we’d like to. Why? Why do we have people who we’d like to avoid in our lives at all? Why, even if we’ve somehow managed to get our everyday lives free from interaction with people we’d rather not be around, do we still have to deal with people we don’t even know who will irritate us in some way – like the airplane incidents listed above, or cutting us off in traffic then going slow, or talking loud on a cell phone in a restaurant, or blowing their nose in a restaurant at the table, or… well, you get the picture. We can’t get through life without irritation. Or can we?… Maybe if we look at our own wiring, it would be possible to cut back or even eliminate these feelings. Maybe not. I’ve been working on it for years, and I’m as easily irritated as anyone I know. I do realize this about myself, so hopefully realizing it might be step one to resolving it. I try to think, when situations are presented to me that are irritating, what is the lesson here? Especially if it comes up over and over, or when it concerns that person you see who just by their presence creates anger within you. Why is this person in my life? How can I resolve this without socking him in the nose? Maybe socking him in the nose IS how to resolve it? Probably not, even though it sometimes does seem like the best option. Bottom line for me on this issue is this: the happier I am, the less other people, and/or their actions bother me. So, how do I create happiness within myself? By living my life aligned with my own priorities. To do this, I need to know what those priorities are. I intend to write an entire book on this subject next month, the working title is, “Everybody Dies – A Manual for Life”. Priorities are important, and life didn’t come with a manual. Living life aligned with what’s truly important to you can sound easier on paper than it is in the real world, but the closer we get the happier we’ll be, and I do believe it creates a better frame of mind for dealing with the actions of others as well.
