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How to tolerate annoying things

psyche.co

21–30 of 51 posts

Re: How to tolerate annoying things

#21
I’ve gotten a lot out of the writings of Albert Ellis whose work in the 50s and 60s became cognitive behavioral therapy. He would have said that it is irrational to demand that everyday inconveniences not exist, and by changing your thinking to accept and expect that unavoidable inconveniences happen, you will be less likely to allow these things to cause emotional distress.

He credits the ancient stoics and other philosophers for influencing his methods.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/rational-em... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5836900/

Re: How to tolerate annoying things

#22

I have insane admiration for and quite a serious amount of jealousy of people who are able to sail through life with with every setback sailing right past them, leaving no trace or mark. I've noticed it more in people who had a comfortable upringing and no money worries. Oh dear, dinner is burnt? No worries just order takeout! Lost your passport a few days before a holiday - no sweat, just pay the fast track processi…

I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with money, or even the stress of the environment inherently, I think it's all about how people choose to deal with their problems.

You could be raised in a poor home and grow up to a work in a "high stress" environment with ease because at some point you chose not to be too bothered by it.

Re: How to tolerate annoying things

#24
post #18

I don’t think anyone should tolerate what they find annoying, life is too short. If something or someone wants to keep you around, they should be less annoying to you.

I think you’re missing some of the point. What will you do when you find yourself stuck in traffic or in an airport security line that takes an hour to advance? Substitute some annoying situation that is beyond your control. If you react by upsetting yourself, then the advice is for you; otherwise, I don’t think you need it.

Re: How to tolerate annoying things

#25

I have insane admiration for and quite a serious amount of jealousy of people who are able to sail through life with with every setback sailing right past them, leaving no trace or mark. I've noticed it more in people who had a comfortable upringing and no money worries. Oh dear, dinner is burnt? No worries just order takeout! Lost your passport a few days before a holiday - no sweat, just pay the fast track processi…

I think you might want to examine your assumption that there are people who "sail through life." It may seem that way from the outside, and you may even observe people handling everyday stressors well. But I promise you, everyone is struggling. Everyone suffers. (btw, that's actually the first Noble Truth of Buddhism).

But you can learn ways to separate the stress you can't control from the stress you can control (your reaction/behavior), which is the foundation of CBT & ACT (and is the third Noble Truth).

I personally don't think upbringing has a big impact on our natural ability to do this; I think it's mostly genetic. But it doesn't really matter.

The good news is, the brain is plastic, and you absolutely can change your mind and behaviors pretty radically over time. This is the science behind psychological flexibility / ACT—and yes, it does replicate.

When I find myself thinking "some people just have it easier," I try to ask myself "is that a workable worldview? If I follow that train of thought, is that moving me in the right direction? Or is it causing me to give up or give in to resentment and frustration? Could I just let it pass?" You don't have to argue with the thought; you can just notice it and let it float on by.

Re: How to tolerate annoying things

#26
This article seems fine, but I would say that physical acts are really the core go-to for this. Things like running a marathon or Zen meditation.

There's nothing that helps you endure smaller unpleasant things more directly than just a regular practice of enduring them.

Re: How to tolerate annoying things

#27

I have insane admiration for and quite a serious amount of jealousy of people who are able to sail through life with with every setback sailing right past them, leaving no trace or mark. I've noticed it more in people who had a comfortable upringing and no money worries. Oh dear, dinner is burnt? No worries just order takeout! Lost your passport a few days before a holiday - no sweat, just pay the fast track processi…

I don’t think those people you’re thinking about sail through life and never get bothered by anything at all. You probably only see them deal with things that are below their level of worry or frustration. They’re not going to be unbothered by the death of a loved one or major financial catastrophe.

However people who have good emotional control can appear to be emotionally invincible relative to people who are turn every minor annoyance into a catastrophe and are completely devastated by anything with minor significance.

> I've noticed it more in people who had a comfortable upringing and no money worries. Oh dear, dinner is burnt? No worries just order takeout! Lost your passport a few days before a holiday - no sweat, just pay the fast track processing fee. Car broken down? Just jump in a taxi. Coffee ruined your top? Just buy another one.

You’re only seeing one very narrow version of problems in their life that are easily solved by money.

I grew up around some kids who were very wealthy. Some had net worths in excess of $10 million in their 20s because their parents were tax optimizing their inheritance over decades.

While they were unbothered by simple things that could be solved with a credit card (burnt dinner, spilled coffee) they were, in general, much less prepared to handle the stresses of life than their peers. In fact, I can think of many examples where they fell apart and some who spiraled immediately into drug addiction the first time they encountered life problems that weren’t easily solved by money: Being broken up with by a love interest, denied promotions because they weren’t performing as well as their peers, doing poorly at their expensive colleges.

So I wouldn’t agree at all that wealthy people are inherently more resilient to stress. You’re only looking at a narrow set of financial problems which are already solved for them. Having those problems solved for them can actually lead to lower levels of stress resilience when the real problems come along.

Re: How to tolerate annoying things

#28

I have insane admiration for and quite a serious amount of jealousy of people who are able to sail through life with with every setback sailing right past them, leaving no trace or mark. I've noticed it more in people who had a comfortable upringing and no money worries. Oh dear, dinner is burnt? No worries just order takeout! Lost your passport a few days before a holiday - no sweat, just pay the fast track processi…

I don’t think those people you’re thinking about sail through life and never get bothered by anything at all. You probably only see them deal with things that are below their level of worry or frustration. They’re not going to be unbothered by the death of a loved one or major financial catastrophe. However people who have good emotional control can appear to be emotionally invincible relative to people who are turn…

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Re: How to tolerate annoying things

#29
post #18

I don’t think anyone should tolerate what they find annoying, life is too short. If something or someone wants to keep you around, they should be less annoying to you.

Sometimes, it’s your own mind too. I have at times, pretty bad OCD in the form of terrible intrusive thoughts. They can trigger such distress in me that I’ve lost years of my life to them. Learning to tolerate them is essentially the first step to reducing their frequency in the conscious mind. That and meds but if I could just stop thinking some things, trust me, I would.

Re: How to tolerate annoying things

#30
post #13

I am deaf but not completely deaf. Some sounds I can hear and a lot of the sounds that are loud enough to come to my attention are annoying . Often not the same sounds that annoy other people, too. I'm reminded of a conversation with my friend who is fully Deaf from birth and a signer. Hearing people are a foreign culture for him. It's tricky to navigate the hearing world sometimes, when you don't know what what nois…

Your friend is remarkably prescient. I [1] can mostly "tune out and ignore" those "irritating" sounds that so many others complain, gripe, and stress about, and I have noticed the identical aspect your friend noticed, although I don't think I considered it a "control" aspect until now. Those that are "bothered" by some sound they ought to ignore always seem bothered by sounds where they believe they should have some ability to "control" their world (even, if, they really don't have any control over the truck in the alley beeping because it is reversing out). I've lost count of the number of times I've been asked by someone I'm with "aren't you bothered by ???" to which my answer almost always is some form of: "I hear it, but I don't let it bother me." Which almost always evokes an amazing surprise on the part of the individual who asked the question, often with a response along the lines of "I don't understand how you can do that."

[1] for the record, not deaf, so I cannot fully relate to nor understand your world.

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