Being Annoyed

I subscribe to a wonderful e-newsletter called the 77% Weekly - Religion Outside the Box, with Rabbi Brian. He has a nice way of making religion not about church and sermons and what you should or shouldn't believe in, but taking our many little character flaws and uncharitable behaviors, and trying to get us all to be aware of them, learn from them and break bad habits, while having faith in the God of our understanding to help us get through tough times. Brian is a smart guy who has a way with words... on Monday he asked his followers to record the time during the day each time we felt annoyed. Here's an email he sent this morning:

A reflection on annoyances...

I am doing the exercise that I sent out on Monday -- Managing Annoyances -- and have two observations that I wanted to share with you.

(No, I'm not going to tell you the number of times that I get annoyed a day as that might lead to competition.)

Here are two things that I've found:

1.      I want to record WHY I am annoyed every time that I get annoyed.  I really want to be able to justify my irk.  

2.    The simple act of taking out my note-pad to record my annoyances short-circuits my usually path of making a snarky comment.  As Victor Frankl said: Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. 

I hope you are trying this exercise and learning about you -- after all, what is more important to learn?

Rb

Hahaha… I’ve learned two things too! Either it’s a good week (no annoyances on Monday and only 2 yesterday, and I can't remember what the second one was for!) or I am not easily annoyed. 

And I also wanted to write down why I was annoyed. It wasn’t just me throwing a pout… it was my stupid laptop jamming AGAIN and taking over an hour to turn on yesterday morning… while I was supposed to be working! That’s worth it, right? It’s not a character flaw when there’s such a good reason to be annoyed!

On the other hand… I do get annoyed by the actions of others and I know that's something that I need to work on. I can't project my way of thinking onto someone else, and I have no idea why it is they do what they do. For example, say a neighbour burns garbage. That's a bad thing on a couple of levels... first, it really STINKS. Second, it's not good for the environment. Okay, so I get annoyed. It happens for about 1/2 hour a week, it's someone who grew up in an era when everyone did it and didn't realize that it was bad for the environment, and I really adore the person who does it, so wouldn't want to hurt their feelings or strain the relationship by saying anything (although I did write a Fish Heads in our online paper 'the Express' about it... anonymously trying to get the word out without implicating myself). I can't seem to just accept that this happens and not react. I don't know why, and I don't know how to fix it, but trying to figure that out and work on it is a good way to become a better person, I think. Thanks Rabbi Brian!