Things can annoy you for no reason, and I don't know why that is. Sure, we are living in tense times, but so many people, myself included, who sometimes go to the negative instantly. It's like a compulsion.
Take me, for instance. Today I woke up in a pretty good mood for a change. On the way to work, I had to stop at Staples to get a few things.
Now it's true I get a little anxiety at times when I walk into some big store and have to wander around looking for stuff. I retain some of the same impulses I had in high school, feeling out of place, feeling like people are judging me. You sometimes end up carrying your bullies with you forever. It's not some overwhelming, crippling thing(at least not most of the time), but it does put me on edge a little now and then. I didn't really feel any of that this morning.
Sometimes when I do, though, I tend to get aggravated easier, and in my mind I tend to lash out and put people down. Maybe it's a defense mechanism, find something wrong with them to make me feel more at ease. Oddly enough, it never makes me feel at ease. It only makes me feel like a jerk, petty and weak. I end up chastising myself for even going that route. You would never know all this turmoil is going on in my head at the time. I am polite and outgoing, and I even try to smile, although I rarely manage to pull that off at any time.
All that aside, even when I’m not wrestling with all that in my head, there are still those times that I see someone I perceive as different from me, and my initial reaction is “get a load of this”. I don’t know why. Young people, old people, pierced and tattooed people, people who dress funny or people who dress too conservative. Anything about the way they are acting or they look can catch me off guard and make me wonder what the hell is wrong with the world.
I usually catch myself when I do it, and I quickly correct myself and get over it. But that impulse is still there sometimes, and it bothers me.
I really don’t care what people do or look like or dress like. I think everyone should be whatever they want to be. Sure, I have my own ideas of what is fine and what is over the line in some extreme cases, but I honestly don’t think anyone has the right to dictate what other people can do with their lives. Who they can love, what they can wear, how they can act, whatever. As long as you’re not hurting anyone else, have at it. I don’t care about people whose jeans hang down, I don’t care if you pierce your face or weigh a hundred pounds or a thousand. Whatever makes you happy.
And still there is that momentary aversion every now and then. I know other people do it. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has never at one point or another poked me and pointed out some person that they thought was weird for some reason or another. In fact, most of the people I have met in my life will bond by putting others down. We have all done it at one point or another. It’s basic insecurity, I guess. Tribal behavior, set there by evolution.
The really odd thing is, I respect people that dare to be different. Sometimes I envy them that they have the nerve to be whatever the hell they want to be, damn who’s looking. I am huge mass of insecurities when it comes to my looks. I have suffered with body dysmorphia my whole life, I have battled through a few years of anorexia and bulimia. I can look in the mirror and not see reality, and that’s a pretty freaky feeling, let me tell you. Still, I find I’m more confident than a lot of people in some ways. It’s weird and complex and hard to get my head around.
So maybe that’s why I sometimes have these negative thoughts about people who have done nothing to deserve them. Maybe it’s me trying to make myself feel better, and sabotaging myself in the process. Like all hate or judgemental behavior, it is always more damaging than it is helpful. The sad thing is, I’m cognizant of it, and it’s one of the many things I worry about and am constantly working on. Maybe this is as close as I can get to eliminating it. Maybe it is always going to be lurking there to pop up and flash across my mind. Perhaps it is hard wired into our brains by evolution, and like so many things we just have to rise above it through sheer will and determination.
Sigh. All this work for something that is usually gone in an instant and happens only once or twice a month. Something that flits through my brain for a moment, and no one even gets an inkling it’s even happening. Still, I like to know what the hell my brain is up to at all times, and why it still engages in shitty behavior, even for a split second.
The only reason I bring any of this up, is because of the moment I went to check out at the aforementioned Staples. It was an annoying trip through the store, taking me awhile to find what I wanted, and being shocked at the prices they were charging. Oh well, what are you gonna do? When I got to the counter, the young girl working there seemed to be bopping along to some unheard music. I saw a wire going up to an earpiece, and I thought to myself what the hell? Is she listening to music while she’s waiting on customers?!
The thing is, she said hello, and asked if I found everything I was looking for. She smiled and was nice and courteous, so why did it matter if she was listening to music at the same time? Just her head bobbing, and mouthing some words annoyed the hell out of me for a few seconds. Why did I care?
I caught myself and was over it in less than 10 seconds, but why did I even feel that way? I calmed down and noticed that she was happy and pleasant, so good for her. If she could still wait on people and do her job, let her listen to her music. It now kind of made me happy that she could do that, and I thought about how the world could use more happy people, even if they did infuriate other people for no reason for a few moments here and there.
It was then that I noticed the wire and the earpiece was the thing all employees at Staples wore. It was a communications thing, to call other employees, to get help or a price check or whatever. This happy, sweet woman was just bopping along to a song in her head, not ignoring me or drowning me out with some outside noise.
And that’s when I really had to laugh at just how stupid I can be. It made me feel so much better about the world that she had music and joy and happiness inside her, even working at the checkout counter at some big box office superstore. Most people I see can’t feel that happy when everything is going their way and they are doing something they love. Eh, who knows? Maybe working at Staples is what she loves.
Whatever the case, I’m thankful that even though I retain some crappy impulses at times, it doesn’t dictate who I am. It doesn’t drown out the good and wonderful little things that exist all around me, at least not for more than an instant or two.
You may think that this is all a huge waste of time, to write about, or to even think about in my own messy brain, but I don’t think it is at all. Because I’ve seen how little things like this can wreck people. I see them give in to the darkness and make themselves miserable, until they see nothing but misery and things to hate all around them. I see people have these thoughts, and think that they must be horrible, and chastise themselves over and over and let it ruin their self worth.
We are not the impulses and moments of weakness in our lives. We are not the fleeting bad thoughts and flashes of negativity. We are not the mistakes we make and the bad decisions we have to recover from. We are not even the hate and prejudice and misery that these things can blossom into if left unchecked.
We are what we fix. We are what we control. We are what we choose to be, even after we choose wrong the first time, or the first hundred times. We are the rational conclusion we arrive at with a little bit of thought and empathy. We are a work in progress, always. We are that person that someone else might look at with a moment of annoyance or disgust, and we should be whoever we are regardless. It’s not our problem after all, it’s theirs.
