Well, I’ve upgraded to WordPress v2.1 now, and everything seems to be functioning rather well. I hit a little snag with the theme, but it seems that a solution found at http://wordpress.org/support/topic/70693?replies=8 did the trick for me. I’m enjoying some of the new features, and I’ve not had any plugins problems, so life, in general is good. Hopefully no weird problems will popup.
So, “life” (speaking of life as a sentient entity always requires quotes in my head) seems to take joy in making self-mastery a very difficult thing to achieve. I’ve been trying extremely hard to master my own responses to other peoples’ actions. I do this because it amuses me, after I’ve allowed someone to make me really angry, that I’ve allowed someone to direct me toward emotions I really don’t like having. It’s funny to me that I so frequently allow other people to decide how I will feel and what my response will be. Sometimes John Doe will be trying to make me angry and I’ll allow him to. Then I feel really stupid because I don’t want to be angry, and there’s no reason for me to let John Doe decide if I’m to enjoy my time or not. Sometimes Jane Doe will do something that is not intended to make me angry, but does anyway, and then I feel stupid because I’ve allowed someone to unintentionally put me in a state that I don’t want to be in, rather than just saying to myself, “She didn’t mean to cause any harm, maybe I should cut her some slack,” and brushing it off.
I guess I just find anger to be an amusing, unpleasant, and completely unnecessary emotion. As such, I’ve been trying really hard to stop getting angry. When I feel myself starting to get irritated, I’ve tried really hard to turn on my analytical brain and ask myself, “What advantage will be angry give me?” I’ve never been able to find a real answer to that question, and it usually helps me stop the escalation into real anger, so I can brush it off and be happy instead. I’ve been really focusing on trying to do that lately, and “life” seems to really want to make sure I get my practice. It seems the more I try not to get angry, the more things happen that tend to start making me angry. It’s kind of amusing and tiring all at once. Anyway, I just noticed this today because yesterday was a particularly trying day, and I’ve been reviewing the day as I’ve been doing some work that involves a lot of waiting and watching computers to make sure the processes I’ve started complete, and if they don’t, watching so I can catch the error they kick out at me. Days like this afford me a lot of time to think, and I tend to get introspective eventually when left to just think.
Anyhow, the quest for self-mastery is one that I’ll probably never complete, but it’s one that helps me be happier more of the time as try to continue working on it. I definitely learn a lot about myself as I do it. Noticing little things that make me angry, and then asking myself why they make me angry has taught me that I really think quite a lot of myself, and tend to get angry most easily when something seems insulting to me. I’ve learned that a strong dose of humility could help me avoid a lot of the anger I feel, because if I don’t think of myself as someone undeserving of the little insults (that doesn’t mean that I think I deserve them either, really), they won’t appear to be insults to me, or at least they won’t bite me as hard.
Many of the more “buddhist” teachings of my own religion state exactly the things I’m learning for myself through this effort at self-mastery, and I guess knowing them in my head continues to be a much different thing than knowing how to make use of the principles. I say many of the more “buddhist” teachings because I’m not buddhist, but my religion teaches many things that are in harmony with my current understanding of Buddhism, and Buddhism is a more visible example of the ideology I’m trying to engender in myself.
Anyhow, enough introspective philosophizing from me for the day, it’s time to get to work on my classes again.
