Choosing personality

For those of you who missed joke at the closing of yesterday's post, here's a link to the video: Anoop Dogg - Drop It Like A Fob

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So, as we discussed yesterday, taking things personally is a somewhat odd habit of people. Here's the kicker: we choose to take things personally.

If someone offends us, we do actually choose to be offended. It's not as if you can't just dismiss the comment. No, instead, we identify the verbal attacker, and choose to think of what they're saying as having some sort of validity. Then, we get upset at the offender and take action from there. Honestly, it's really not that hard to just think about the comment.

Thinking about the comment gives us some benefit. We can be cool and calm, and think about the fact that the comment may, in fact, have some validity. We often immediately dismiss comments completely. This is not a bad idea, especially with derisive exclamations of the "f*** you" variety, which though they make the speaker feel better, they offer no sort of content to the argument at all. However, when actual content is provided, we need to sift out the attitude and try to empathize, so we can accurately judge our actions. After all the negative stuff is stripped, we can see if there is any small bit of truth to the comment, and from there we have a way to better ourselves. In this way, every insult (with proper form) can be an opportunity to better ourselves.

From there, if the comment does not have any usefulness to us (say, the person doesn't know you and made an incorrect assumption entirely, or it was of the aforementioned variety), we can dismiss it as insignificant. Why should we accept the insult? After all, so many of us are our own worst critics.

How many people do you know who hate compliments? Polite humility is one thing (and in many ways pointless, but that's a different argument entirely), but I know many people who hate having nice things said to them because they're insecure. They're so unhappy with themselves that they simply cannot accept the compliment as having any truth to it. It's really amusing to me, because I used to be very cynical. I mean, if most people are self-centered and conceited, how is it that so many people prefer to accept insults as truth and compliments as false? It's easy to find self-centered, conceited people. You don't need to see their self-praise to know how they are. On the other hand, it's more difficult to identify self-loathers, unless they take it to a very dire extreme.

Instead of hearing an insult and immediately going with "initial" feelings like hurt and anger, it's more useful to try to stay calm and analyze the insult itself. Just because someone opens their mouth doesn't mean you have to listen to them. It's much harder to do with people who know just what to say to get you pissed off, but really, isn't that a better opportunity to learn to control our responses?

On taking things personally

Okay, I'm starting to make up for (as of today) nine posts. That leaves us two weeks worth, two weekend "appreciation" posts, and one for today. Here goes.

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A practical piece of advice: don't take anything personally. Really, think about it. Everything that happens to us in our day-to-day lives is important. We live for the small moments, and we try not to think about how much time we may have left too often. Not to say it doesn't cross our thoughts, but we look at its significance and then we shoo it aside for the time being. And, when we work long hours, after studying for years, we get to a point where we can barely sense the time going by. We take our joys where we can, perhaps due to a smile from the mailman, or the courtesy of the woman in front of you in the checkout line who let you go in front of her because she only had five items and you had sixteen, and she wasn't in a rush.

I guess it's only natural that if we do that, then we would also have a propensity to think largely of the small things that make us irate. After all, we like universal laws, don't we? It's easy to have a rule apply all across the board, and it's easier to keep track of things that way, without worrying about exceptions. Except, of course, for the undeniable fact that we are hypocrites, each and every one of us. Whether it's because we're rich, so we shouldn't have to pay the government (though the poor have to), or if it's because we're angry and the lady to our right cut us off, so we can flip her off (even though if we cut someone off, we flip them off for being slow).

The trick is to use that hypocrisy in our favor. We need to skew the scale of the things we find important. Something important that I learned in various philosophy classes was that if you believe in something, take it to an extreme and see if it still applies. Because that's a good exercise, I'll do it here. On my deathbed, will I feel that the lady who cut me off this morning is a horrible person who made me angry? Will I even remember that? Will I remember the kind act of the woman in the checkout line?

Back to taking things personally... Why do we do it? I distinctly see two sides to this story. After all, it takes two to tango.

When we do bad things, we have our reasons. We're in a rush and the other is taking his sweet time, and we can't put up with it because hey, he should be considerate to others. Couple that with a horribly angry boss back at the office, and an irate wife at home to whom you said you'd be home on time (and here it is, an hour and a half later), you have just cause for tension and anxiety, and even downright anger. And, this guy just happens to be in front of us now, and so why not overtake him with the bird flapping about? The perversity here has nothing to do with what we do here, but mostly with how when someone does it to us, we see it as a direct attack on us, rather than remember we do that sort of thing ourselves. Perhaps not exactly the same way, but yes. And you know, it's also perverse because it truly is easier to think that this person we don't know at all happens to know we're in a rush and is being slow on purpose, so he deserves the insult, rather than try to let it go. Those who remember the days of gigantic flame wars will know exactly how this pans out on a larger scale. We take this to heart and we don't forget about it.

The other side is that when good things happen, we tend to question. In the words of Dan Le Sac, "Thou shalt not think any male over the age of thirty that plays with a child that is not their own is a peadophile. Some people are just nice." (Courtesy of Youtube, video here: Thou Shalt Always Kill.) Now, yes, there are people with ulterior motives, but honestly, with simple gestures, we don't need to be suspicious. We should be appreciative, and return the favor ourselves. Instead, we tend to disregard those acts, because... Because, partially, we don't understand where they're coming from, and partially because we can't remember the good days we have that cause us to do nice things. And we do do nice things on occasion.

Here is where we need to adjust the hypocrisy again. We should be in favor of good things happening to us, and take them for what they are. A hedonistic stance, perhaps, but one that makes sense to almost everyone.

Think about it, take a second.

Ding!

Contended craving.

One of the most important lessons in life, I feel, is learning to be content with what you have. Of course, my background is founded in the eastern monastic life, stopping craving and all. The idea there is that desire is the cause of unhappiness, because we crave things and when we're not granted them we fall prey to unhappiness. So, we must learn to curb our cravings and/or make our happiness based on something else.

This also ties into action, as if we do things based on what we'll get from them, we'll be susceptible to fear and anxiety. Our expectation of our "reward," or whatever the consequences we want to come out ultimately taint our action. The idea here is to act without being attached to results. Do, for the sake of doing, and then if you get the action it's nice, but since that isn't directly dependent on what our own actions are we mustn't put crucial importance on it. For example, I will be applying to Medical School, and the results of that application process aren't up to me, so I must do so without solely focusing on getting in, but on doing it properly. This often has the added benefit (for many people) of taking away stress, making the "doing" part easier (though others prefer pressure to get things done).

Of course, the major benefit of being content with what you have is that you really spend time, money, effort, etc. on things you need, or want so badly that it makes it worthwhile. However, as most of us know, this is damn near impossible when buying gadgets.

The way things work in the gadget industry, you spend tons of time looking at prices for something you want, doing comparison shopping to find out where to buy it, and tracking it down there, only to get there (or get to a website) to find that there's something newer, better, and cheaper (or more expensive, which equally disastrous). Then you go track down previews, reviews, reports of issues, find out what's good and what's not, and you start the process all over again.

On the other hand, once you buy something, something newer and better comes out. If you buy something new, you very often end up being a beta tester for a product that doesn't function as advertised, or loses support, or ends up being really crappy in comparison to the competing products that come out inevitably the day after your return policy ends. This says nothing of the excruciating time you spend trying to make your new toy work, the yelling and cursing you do when it doesn't, the time you take to get help from anywhere you can (friends, stores, online forums, even books!), more of the yelling and cursing to find out that it's not what you expected, only to find a glimmer of hope or happiness at the first moment of it performing properly.

And there's more. There are those, who are like me, who wait upwards of six months to go through the studying process, to learn what's coming up, how it will be implemented in comparison to what you plan on buying, and where your product's pitfalls are. Then, you judge that based on when you want/need it, how much it costs and will cost in the future, and whether the next generation is worth waiting for (and repeating the process for). Then you buy it, and you love it and lament the fact that you spent so long deliberating over buying it. Or, you realize you made a dire mistake, but it's too late to go return it and get something else. Or, also like me, you realize you didn't want it that much in the first place and you don't buy it (hey, it's a great way to save money!).

Buyer's remorse is ever present, and if not, there's the constant fear of it lurking around every corner. And when you buy computers, oh God, there are so many options, and you have to decide whether you want something bleeding edge, or something established, or something cheap, and all have their own repercussions.

So how can we possibly be content with what we have? The easy (i.e. cheap) choice is to not want things, or more likely in practice, just not buy them. But really, the process is important. You have to come to terms with the fact that anything you buy is sure to come with many complications, likely to be reduced to a paperweight in months (if you're lucky), and that you have to do your homework before buying. If you don't wait long enough, you won't know how established the product will be, or the pros and cons. If you wait too long, you increasingly risk buying with something better on the horizon, or with your product being outdated.

It may seem like you have to attain a Zen-like state of mind while being plugged into the internet to find that optimal moment, and learn jump fast and high. Really, it's about patience. You can't buy on a whim. And, unless what you got is a complete lemon, it's about being content with what's in front of you. You're never going to have the king of all gadgets (not for more than a month at any rate), and everything has its limitations. More importantly, you have to come to terms with the fact that there's no catch-all solution, no epitome of "all-in-one" sort of product. There's only ones that serve you needs, fall short, or go beyond. And, especially in this economy, it's important to know when you need to cut back on the spending.

Still, I say being content is easier than it sounds. Take some discipline and apply it to your cravings. Eventually, and you may have to trust me on this, after an initial rush of craving more, you'll get to a point where you'll desire things less. Then, when you do want something, you'll know how to make it money well spent, and you won't feel so overloaded by the process. Who knows? Maybe we can all even begin to appreciate the old-fashioned way to go about doing things a little bit more.