Does anyone else get irritated by stuff or am I just dumb

Messy

Messy

Senior Member
I get a letter for an id card. Why cant they write 5 sentences a normal dumb person understands. Im also not gonna google words. I used to talk to an american guy and switched to dutch when the words were too much effort. My German teacher dad laughed his ass off. What on earth is she saying? Im 55. My mom just dumps it all on my brother. We now get why my dad could be grumpy. My goodness.
 
A Turkish woman asked me for help once. Nobody helps her. Doesnt speak a word Dutch. Insane complicated language. I could help her. That's even worse.
 
YES!!!!! :). I have to smile because it is always something that irritates me. I can go maybe 5 minutes max and then I think something and it irritates me. Really. Walk in the woods is better. I can stay calm and content for about 20 minutes and then it creeps back in.

I am starting to understand irritation as not the same thing as negative thinking. In my world with all its frustrations (which has gone up significantly as I have gotten old/er) being irritated is normal if something is really messed up. Negative thing is like a spiral of things things are getting worse. It can and does sometimes lead to being depressed...which I avoid as much as possible. Remember you got to "roll with the punches". :)
 
I've been studying the philosophy of Stoicism in hopes that following their practices, I'll become less agitated and maybe spend less time ruminating about stupid crap that happened to me.

Their philosophy is: if it's not under your control, don't waste time worrying about it or trying to change it. Just accept it as something that is or that happened and move on. You can take precautions to assure bad things don't happen to you in the future, or to at least minimize the damage external events might have on your life, but past events are out of your control. There is no way to change the past, so just accept what happened as a fact rather than something that's nagging at your soul.

That's the theory, anyway. I think it's helping me.
 
I'd like to think I'm less irritable now than when younger but I'd be fooling myself. I just came home from Lowes and while there I got irritated twice. lol

First time was some lady with a shopping cart crosswise in an isle. She was talking on her phone but looking toward as I walked down the isle and I still had to stop and say excuse me. Guess what? She actually sneered at me! Second was one of Lowes employees walking down an isle toward me, I'm on the right and he's walking straight at me showing no signs of moving over. This is America right? We always bare to the right, it's the law! I was going to shoulder check the guy but he moved over at the last second, I think the hostile sneer in my eye moved him off.😝
 
Funniest thing to me was some time ago my wife and I were shopping in WalMart for a new vacuum. There we were standing in the aisle deliberating about which one to choose when an employee approached, and with some disdain, asked us to please get out of her way so she could shelve the items on her cart, lol.
 
With age comes a wealth of experiences, with people and their behaviors. Too easy to see the selfishness and malice. I certainly find myself getting grumpy in the store all too often. There are gracious kind and thoughtful folks out there, I keep telling myself, so best to presume motives are positive or actions were done ignorantly. I relate though.
 
We're supposed to get several inches of snow tomorrow, which will accumulate in the shade screen on the pergola on the patio if I don't take it down. If that happens, the pergola may collapse since it's not designed to hold that much weight. The screen is held on by about 20 or so screws.

The problem is, it's 39° and raining outside, and is not showing any signs of letting up, which means I'm going to have to take down the shade screen in the rain.

This will be a good test of my Stoicism practice. I can't do anything about the rain or the cold, so I'm just going to have to deal with it.
 
CaliS said:
I think, as we get older, our patience thins and irritation happens more often.

I try to let it slide off as often as possible, because with age also comes some wisdom.

If I can't control it - why get all worked up about it?
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Yes stuff I have no influence on, that's useless to get worked up about, but this is stuff you have to do or not. I didn't understand it. But Google helped me. When I calmed down I asked Google: Do I have to do it now or later, link my son's new id card. It's something new that you have to link it to government sites . And Google AI just talks simple and says: no you can do that later.
 
RambleTamble said:
I've been studying the philosophy of Stoicism in hopes that following their practices, I'll become less agitated and maybe spend less time ruminating about stupid crap that happened to me.

Their philosophy is: if it's not under your control, don't waste time worrying about it or trying to change it. Just accept it as something that is or that happened and move on. You can take precautions to assure bad things don't happen to you in the future, or to at least minimize the damage external events might have on your life, but past events are out of your control. There is no way to change the past, so just accept what happened as a fact rather than something that's nagging at your soul.

That's the theory, anyway. I think it's helping me.
Click to expand...
Yes we once got that at work with a Covey course. Don't worry about things you have no influence on. I thought that was a good one.
 
RambleTamble said:
I've been studying the philosophy of Stoicism in hopes that following their practices, I'll become less agitated and maybe spend less time ruminating about stupid crap that happened to me.

Their philosophy is: if it's not under your control, don't waste time worrying about it or trying to change it. Just accept it as something that is or that happened and move on. You can take precautions to assure bad things don't happen to you in the future, or to at least minimize the damage external events might have on your life, but past events are out of your control. There is no way to change the past, so just accept what happened as a fact rather than something that's nagging at your soul.

That's the theory, anyway. I think it's helping me.
Click to expand...
I adopted the stoist lifestyle about 40yrs ago. Before then, I thought a fist fight settled all matters big and small. I've been a lot happier since. Also, never been arrested since. 😜
 
The main thing that really gets to me is someone tailgating me to make me go faster, especially on the 2 lane
interstate where they can pass me if they choose. I have to always get to the point where I wonder... is their
eyesight bad and need to be close to know they are in this lane? Praying an animal doesn't come charging
into the road at the same time they are 1/2 car length behind me. Yes I even slow down and if we had enough shoulder
on the road I would even have went over to that in some cases. To me... that is a dumb thing for people to do.
 
CaliS said:
I think, as we get older, our patience thins and irritation happens more often.
Click to expand...

Huh. I think the opposite is true. As we get older we become more accepting of things, and are better able to see the bigger picture.

Which is not to say annoyances don't happen. I don't get angry while driving, or out in public. I'm also able to hold my tongue these days. Angst is the one thing I need less of, not more.
 
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