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To me it means how I interpret what happens around me dictates how I feel.
I have a choice to feel positive or negative. If I really want to stay at the amusement park I will change the way I think about the crowd. Problem unstuck.
Others who value a more rigid thought process may choose to keep their interpretation and leave to avoid the dissonance.
The conflict here represents the problem two opposing personality types have understanding each other. But it doesn't dictate a right and a wrong choice. It represents what works best for that personality type. In that sense it's moot.
Case #1: My family (when my sons were little; they are adults now) went to a park for the 4th of July with the in-laws, also a family with two young sons, and my Ex's Mom (the kids' Grandma.) My nephew, who was something like 5-7 years old at the time, at the first loud pop of a firework, started screaming and crying and yelling, "I'M SCARED I'M SCARED I'M SCARED" and their entire family packed up all their stuff in the biggest hurry I'd ever seen and went running to their vehicle to leave. Gone in a flash. Never mind if his brother had wanted to enjoy the fireworks, or any of the rest of the family members who were there, the loud, upset child pushed four other people to change what they were doing to accommodate him. My younger son, upon witnessing this, mumbled, "Mom, I'm scared" and I told him, "This isn't scary! Look at the pretty lights! It can't hurt you, look...goes wheeee boom!" and I was smiling and reassuring. No one even TRIED to talk my nephew off his ledge, they just leapt to do his bidding.
As a young adult, he is a recluse. He's smart, but has absolutely no friends, has never had a girlfriend, he's surly and hard to get along with. He pretty much lives on the internet. He seems very angry about a lot of things.
Case #2: My Ex would begin every family vacation telling our sons how he knew they would misbehave and he was ready to punish them as soon as they started. He would proceed to complain, be sarcastic and angry to everyone around him, and literally ruin every family trip. When pressed about this, he'd say he was in a bad mood because he wasn't at home, wasn't getting enough sex (with the family lodging situation and so on) couldn't play his video games, and didn't want to be there. Eventually I started excluding him from my plans to take the boys on vacations. He then complained about that. Not only did he not want to do the things we found to be fun, he did not want us to do them, either.
Case #3: A friend of mine, I offered to use my airline miles to include him on a trip to a music festival. He enthusiastically agreed to go. When we got there, he immediately was upset and concerned about whether he could hook up some weed (we are from CO where it's legal, and he is obsessed.) When I made that my first priority upon arrival, he was angry that it was too expensive for what we got and the quality wasn't as good. He then insisted that I buy him alcohol. He spent the weekend complaining, and when drunk acted like a total a-hole to all my friends, to the point he almost got his butt kicked and frankly, he deserved it. He vanished at one point and I found him in the hotel room I paid for, and he'd trashed the place, threw the furniture around, and broke the phone and remote controls. When I was furious with him after all of this, he said is was my fault for "dragging him" on this trip. Which he had enthusiastically agreed to go on, when I was booking it. Apparently he'd said "Yeah, that sounds amazing" expecting it to not actually happen or something? That ended our friendship.
OK fine, so you don't like something... Don't pretend you do, as an adult, don't agree to go somewhere where there will be crowds, if you hate crowds and you know you'll have a terrible time, or if you DO agree to go do something, then you really have no entitlement to make everyone have a bad time, especially if they paid for it. If you just want to crap all over other people's happiness, you do NOT have an entitlement to do that for sport, go be alone and stay away from people who are trying to enjoy life. Because some of us, are opting out of YOUR bullcrap.
I will absolutely cut people out of my life for this. I don't give a damn if they are family. I do not count on my family to take care of me, in any capacity, since hell...they haven't yet, why would they start now? And that's also part of my feelings about it when people chide me for not letting family members push me around, because I might need them someday...I don't have any family that I really believe or expect would "be there for me" when I needed them. I've kinda figured I'd better make sure I can afford to pay for it, if one day I need "care." And it most definitely is not worth putting up with people who stress me out, when I'm over here...yes..."making the best of things" for myself.
My "I don't want to be here" thing would be a sports game. Best example I can think of, because I don't like sports, and I'm not going to like sports. But if someone I truly cared about, really wanted me to go...
I'd be honest and tell them that I am not into sports. I would tell them that I'd rather not, and would prefer to do something else with them, and I'd have suggestions available. But if they insisted that they wanted me to go and it was important to them, then I would. I'd be planning to bring a book, and my cell phone, and to fill the time. I would get through the experience with a good nature, and I wouldn't complain. This, I feel, is reasonable...if they got mad that I didn't pay attention and get all into the game itself, well...they were warned. Expecting me to feel a different way, isn't reasonable.
What I'm pushing back against here, is the kind of entitlement where someone who isn't happy about a situation, feels it's OK to make others unhappy, too, because they aren't getting their way. Frankly I feel it's my responsibility to entertain myself, to endure things even if they aren't what I want necessarily, if the feelings of others are involved. My feelings are my problem, not theirs.
I don't care if some people think that way of being raised needs to "go die" or something, I was raised to be considerate of others, and not utterly self absorbed, entitled, and demanding. And I see more of that in other people sometimes, than I like. Fortunately, I know plenty of well mannered and considerate humans, so I do have plenty of people in my life. I don't have to tolerate the ones I don't want to deal with.
My "I don't want to be here" thing would be a sports game. Best example I can think of, because I don't like sports, and I'm not going to like sports. But if someone I truly cared about, really wanted me to go...
I'd be honest and tell them that I am not into sports. I would tell them that I'd rather not, and would prefer to do something else with them, and I'd have suggestions available. But if they insisted that they wanted me to go and it was important to them, then I would. I'd be planning to bring a book, and my cell phone, and to fill the time. I would get through the experience with a good nature, and I wouldn't complain. This, I feel, is reasonable...if they got mad that I didn't pay attention and get all into the game itself, well...they were warned. Expecting me to feel a different way, isn't reasonable.
What I'm pushing back against here, is the kind of entitlement where someone who isn't happy about a situation, feels it's OK to make others unhappy, too, because they aren't getting their way. Frankly I feel it's my responsibility to entertain myself, to endure things even if they aren't what I want necessarily, if the feelings of others are involved. My feelings are my problem, not theirs.
I don't care if some people think that way of being raised needs to "go die" or something, I was raised to be considerate of others, and not utterly self absorbed, entitled, and demanding. And I see more of that in other people sometimes, than I like. Fortunately, I know plenty of well mannered and considerate humans, so I do have plenty of people in my life. I don't have to tolerate the ones I don't want to deal with.
RE: the bolded/underlined. I've never said that is what I am talking about, are you referring to my OP?
It's more like if a friend of yours heard you don't like sports but repeatedly suggested you would/could/should "because it's what you make it."
Not about whether you would choose to do something you're not 100% thrilled about.
Almost invariably, the presumption in Anglo-American culture, is that if somehow we find ourselves put out, disaffected, disappointed or otherwise reversed, well, it’s our own fault. We have a bad attitude, or preconceived notions that impede our capacity to use our senses and to derive enjoyment from the situation. So, we’re exhorted to revise our thinking, and thereby to realign ourselves with the expected proper direction of life: happy, well-adjusted and fulfilled. Simple, pat,... and wrong.
Case #1: My family (when my sons were little; they are adults now) went to a park for the 4th of July with the in-laws, also a family with two young sons, and my Ex's Mom (the kids' Grandma.) My nephew, who was something like 5-7 years old at the time, at the first loud pop of a firework, started screaming and crying and yelling, "I'M SCARED I'M SCARED I'M SCARED" and their entire family packed up all their stuff in the biggest hurry I'd ever seen and went running to their vehicle to leave. Gone in a flash. Never mind if his brother had wanted to enjoy the fireworks, or any of the rest of the family members who were there, the loud, upset child pushed four other people to change what they were doing to accommodate him. My younger son, upon witnessing this, mumbled, "Mom, I'm scared" and I told him, "This isn't scary! Look at the pretty lights! It can't hurt you, look...goes wheeee boom!" and I was smiling and reassuring. No one even TRIED to talk my nephew off his ledge, they just leapt to do his bidding.
As a young adult, he is a recluse. He's smart, but has absolutely no friends, has never had a girlfriend, he's surly and hard to get along with. He pretty much lives on the internet. He seems very angry about a lot of things.
Case #2: My Ex would begin every family vacation telling our sons how he knew they would misbehave and he was ready to punish them as soon as they started. He would proceed to complain, be sarcastic and angry to everyone around him, and literally ruin every family trip. When pressed about this, he'd say he was in a bad mood because he wasn't at home, wasn't getting enough sex (with the family lodging situation and so on) couldn't play his video games, and didn't want to be there. Eventually I started excluding him from my plans to take the boys on vacations. He then complained about that. Not only did he not want to do the things we found to be fun, he did not want us to do them, either.
Case #3: A friend of mine, I offered to use my airline miles to include him on a trip to a music festival. He enthusiastically agreed to go. When we got there, he immediately was upset and concerned about whether he could hook up some weed (we are from CO where it's legal, and he is obsessed.) When I made that my first priority upon arrival, he was angry that it was too expensive for what we got and the quality wasn't as good. He then insisted that I buy him alcohol. He spent the weekend complaining, and when drunk acted like a total a-hole to all my friends, to the point he almost got his butt kicked and frankly, he deserved it. He vanished at one point and I found him in the hotel room I paid for, and he'd trashed the place, threw the furniture around, and broke the phone and remote controls. When I was furious with him after all of this, he said is was my fault for "dragging him" on this trip. Which he had enthusiastically agreed to go on, when I was booking it. Apparently he'd said "Yeah, that sounds amazing" expecting it to not actually happen or something? That ended our friendship.
OK fine, so you don't like something... Don't pretend you do, as an adult, don't agree to go somewhere where there will be crowds, if you hate crowds and you know you'll have a terrible time, or if you DO agree to go do something, then you really have no entitlement to make everyone have a bad time, especially if they paid for it. If you just want to crap all over other people's happiness, you do NOT have an entitlement to do that for sport, go be alone and stay away from people who are trying to enjoy life. Because some of us, are opting out of YOUR bullcrap.
I will absolutely cut people out of my life for this. I don't give a damn if they are family. I do not count on my family to take care of me, in any capacity, since hell...they haven't yet, why would they start now? And that's also part of my feelings about it when people chide me for not letting family members push me around, because I might need them someday...I don't have any family that I really believe or expect would "be there for me" when I needed them. I've kinda figured I'd better make sure I can afford to pay for it, if one day I need "care." And it most definitely is not worth putting up with people who stress me out, when I'm over here...yes..."making the best of things" for myself.
To be fair, we are born with two innate fears: 1.) fear of falling, and 2.) fear of loud noises.
Almost invariably, the presumption in Anglo-American culture, is that if somehow we find ourselves put out, disaffected, disappointed or otherwise reversed, well, it’s our own fault. We have a bad attitude, or preconceived notions that impede our capacity to use our senses and to derive enjoyment from the situation. So, we’re exhorted to revise our thinking, and thereby to realign ourselves with the expected proper direction of life: happy, well-adjusted and fulfilled. Simple, pat,... and wrong.
And for me your idea robs me of my power to change the situation by the way I think about it. For me it's allowing others to define my abilities to enjoy life. It's one of the dilemmas I've found myself in when I inflict my dissatisfaction on others. It's all very subjective even if they don't know that.
I don't have to be unhappy about daily irritations. It's a choice. Do I want to be irritated or not? If I do, a sure way to increase it is by confirming it, legitimizing it, complaining about it. It will grow until you can feast on it for months. We all know people who do this.
I'm not talking about pretending. I'm talking about genuinely learning this skill. It is a mental health skill. You can learn to detach from personal irritations. It takes practice and release from the domination of the ego. You're right. It's a very Eastern way of thought but no reason you can't practice it here.
You talk as though this is not a possibility and if one is unhappy the only thing you can do is dump it into the room. Tyranny of the ego and dependence. And it almost always leads to more unhappiness for all concerned.
It all boils down, for me, to the question, "Do I want my life's enjoyment to depend on how others act?"
RE: the bolded/underlined. I've never said that is what I am talking about, are you referring to my OP?
It's more like if a friend of yours heard you don't like sports but repeatedly suggested you would/could/should "because it's what you make it."
Not about whether you would choose to do something you're not 100% thrilled about.
No, I am trying to be clear in my words.
No one can convince me to enjoy sports. However, I can still choose to have a good attitude if I have to be physically present for a sportsball game at a stadium for hours, even though I would rather do pretty much anything than be there, if it's my own choice. If a beloved relative I rarely see is in town and is excited to see a game, if my son were about to go away to college and wanted to go to one, if... You get the idea.
I can not only go along with what someone else wants because I can tell it matters to them, and THEY matter to me, I can also be happy for them that they are happy, and I can not only express positive things rather than complaining I can in fact find ways to spin and frame the experience so that I don't feel like I am suffering. I can see it as a nice sunny day to sit and read a book, a chance to make conversation with random strangers (which is one of my favorite pastimes)...something like that.
There are many unpleasant things that happen to us that we can't prevent, but a lot of the time, we do have some control over how much suffering we experience. I know that as someone who does have some depression wired into me through genetics or whatever, that if I feel the beginnings of one of my own depressive spirals, there is a point where I do have a choice. I can forcibly distract myself and lasso my brain and use the tools I have to head off a serious episode, or I can choose not to eat, to smoke a lot, to muddle and ponder the negative self talk and doubt whether anyone likes or loves me and think the bad things, and plunge myself straight into the well. There is a tipping point where I am able to make some choices.
Granted I understand that some might have a lot less control over such things than I do. Which is why there are things like therapy, groups, journaling, meds, and even hospitals, for those who need more. What I do not get to do, is inflict my stuff on other people and refuse to handle it, and expect that others' lives should revolve around me.
And I feel that too often, those who reject any culpability for their own state of being, are expecting or demanding precisely that.
Every human being has the right to like or not like certain things, and nothing whatsoever is right or wrong about the person or his/her likes/dislikes.
It's boorish and illogical for someone else to assert that a person could/would/should feel differently about something if only they'd alter their thinking because "it's really only what you make it."
This is NOT the same as saying said person might agree to do something they'd prefer not to and yet make the best of it...while still not changing his/her mind overall about his likes/dislikes. I mean...that IS life to a degree.
No amount of "it's what I make it" will make me like blues music. I have had someone repeatedly tell me that my dislike is only the product of a stuck mind or something like that. It's preposterous and insulting. THAT SAID, if I'm out at a festival or something and a band comes on and plays some blues, I am absolutely not running for the gate with my fingers in my ears. I mean, I AM an adult.
I can easily see the difference. Is it really that hard?
See, that's the thing. I feel like this phrase requires some sort of justification for how I feel, and then automatically says that justification is wrong. I can't just say that I dislike something because it comes with the caveat that I have to try to spin it in a way so that I do like it. That there *is* no validation for certain feelings because a person should just talk themself into feeling differently.
Not everyone has the choice to skip a place or situation that's unpleasant. For someone else to insist it's all that person's own fault that it's unpleasant because they don't "choose" to see it as positive is not cool.
Yes, precisely. It is, in some cases (not all), a taste of the other person not being able to understand the way the first person feels. Maybe they don't have a problem with crowds, so they don't understand how hard it is for their agoraphobic friend. They can easily tell themselves, "Meh, it's not fun but it's okay," so they try to tell the other person that their panic can't be real/they can just snap out of it if they put their mind to it enough.
Yes true. I suppose that in anything if we try to be positive things may have a better outcome or not seem so bleak. What I find annoying are the well meaning people who always say laughingly just make the best of it, when they’ve always had the best of everything and have never really been in that position to not have the best.
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