Sometimes, people annoy me.
This is perfectly normal. I'm no saint. I have my pain points like anyone else.
One of these is passive aggressive whining, and envy. I see a LOT of this sort of thing from other kinky folks.
They want a partner, or a munch nearby, or the world to somehow be different, or to have some material thing without which their life is incomplete.
There's this silent, unspoken, implication which follows these sorts of complaints, "Could someone out there get/do/change this for me?"
Ugh. Yuck.
This sort of thinking makes my skin crawl, for a number of reasons. These include:
• It objectifies everyone involved.
• They're inherently expectation based.
• They're disempowering of the person saying and thinking them.
These statements have something else in common, too.
They are NOT MY PROBLEM.
Mostly.
Why mostly? Because I'm responsible for my own feelings. The very same annoyance I feel when I see this sort of thinking is as much MY OWN problem as the thinking is the problem of the person doing the thinking!
It's as if when I get annoyed, I'm saying, "I'd be so much happier if person x wasn't such a self-centered, helpless idiot."
Wow. What a bunch of arrogant, self-centered thinking on my part. Who am I to dictate the perfect state of the world and the people in it?
I'm nobody. The universe is perfect just as it is, and moreover is in a state of constant change. If I can stop my own crybaby whining, I can witness some of those changes, enjoy them, work with them.
That's when I know what I have to do.
For/about the person who has annoyed me and not asked for my help, I must do Nothing. (Which is vastly different than not doing anything.)
For myself, I must allow that this situation which annoys me is. Then, with all the self-love I can muster, I have to shut the hell up, and move on.
The Tao Te Ching advises this very strategy.
2
When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.
Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.
Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.
It's not my place to dictate to anyone else how the universe or any part of it should be, beyond the changes I myself can make in it. That's the very essence of one of the three jewels of the Tao, humility.
The Chinese phrase for it is "bugan wei tianxia xian", literally, "dare to not be first in the world."
Knowing that, what I will often do is mute the person in question, for a day, sometimes a week. Because I don't need to tortute myself, right?
Then, as now, I get on with the shutting up.
