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Triggers

Life is... weird, fascinating, fun, sad, painful, mysterious, simple and lots more, at different times or even all at the same time. That's been my experience.

There's so much to learn about one's own self. Even that learning can be relevant or irrelevant depending on time. Similarly, everything is valid or invalid depending on time.

I am not prompted by a desire to philosophise about a black hole out somewhere out there. This is about my life. There's enough here to investigate and understand-myself and others-with a little bit of help from others. My life is weird, fascinating, fun, sad, painful, mysterious, simple and lots more.

Last night, I met my sibling. I found myself flying off the handle late into the night. It was only when my wife, who was trying to sleep in another room asked me a couple of simple questions that I became an observer, of myself. She asked me "Why are you shouting so loudly and attacking your sibling?". One moment I was mad and next moment, I was "Oh f'k, I'm being an arse. I'm better than that." The trigger dissolved. I switched... sorry something switched from being helpless to in control of my emotion. I became remorseful about the impact of my behaviour. It seemed like I was mauling another person's soul. That's what anger is, I think.

The trigger had to do with being told I didn't do something. I was supposed to put in a whole lot of dividend warrants in the bank. It was true, I hadn't done it. I knew I had been procrastinating it. But when someone else pointed it out, I attacked furiously. I first got angry and erupted. That process lead me to the realisation that there were other concealed emotions around performing the task. On the face of it, the task seemed simple. Filling out 10-12 lines per cheque, a frequently changing account number by an unhelpful bank, varying validity dates for each warrrant, mistakes by the company concerning the shareholder's name on the dividend warrant, or the name of the bank in whose name it has been issued evoked helplessness in me. The effort to get everything right seemed too much. My sibling didn't understand how I felt about handling it. I hadn't communicated it to her. Forget communicating it to her, I hadn't known it myself till the argument came up.

Somehow understanding this thing about 'feeling' helpless freed me. After that I was able to unhesitatingly apologise. So, I learnt a few things with the help of this incident.

  • An emotion like anger can easily change within a matter of seconds with the right question/s and the right environment
  • Ideally these questions should come from within. I am sure it can happen even though it appears to be a mountain of hope. Magic can happen. That's fascinating, fun and mysterious.
  • I did try to damage another's soul. That's sad and painful.
Oh now... I am trying hard to link the other words that I said about life. I won't bother. I hope you see it and understand.

Life is... weird, fascinating, fun, sad, painful, mysterious, simple and lots more, at different times or even all at the same time.

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