By Dina Aldabbagh

This thing bothers you and that thing bothers you, about them, about that. And the traffic bothers you, and the way they draw out that one specific word bothers you, and the fact they ask questions you knew the answers to years ago bothers you, and there’s certainly no end to things you can be bothered by. On the flip side, there’s also certainly no end to things that you can be grateful for, that can give you hope, or that can warm your heart — but your perspective and personal choice is what will decide if you’re bothered or grateful.

At some point in your “being bothered” arch, when the bothersome things get more and more specific and tiny, I hope you recognize that you are bothering yourself. Yes, of course you can be bothered by it, but you can also ignore it. To 1. pay attention, and 2. find fault in it is indeed a choice. The things that happen are utterly neutral, they’re not asking for your judgement — nor your praise for that matter. 

No thing is asking you to feel anything about it. Your choice to feel something about it is actually just your decision to identify yourself with that thing. “I get bothered by X,” and “I get pleased with Y,” become parts of how you identify yourself. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not always “bad” to do this. This is a tool, at the end of the day, like any other thing. If you identify with “when people help clean up another person’s party at the end of the event, I am pleased,” then that helps identify you — for yourself and the world — as someone who is kind and cares about community. That’s a helpful mini-pillar to identify yourself. Or you can identify with “I get bothered by feeling sluggish,” which then has the positive effect of identifying you as someone who needs to move their body in order to feel happy. 

Unfortunately, there is a side to this that people typically get lost in. It’s one thing to identify what you do prefer as “good,” and another to identify everything that is not that as “bad.” The issue results that you begin feeling bothered by all that was not categorized in the “I like” pile. Suddenly, when things that are not even in your control don’t fall onto the right side of the line, it’s now a problem for you. Things feel like they “should” be going another way — based on your preference — and because they’re currently not, something is therefore wrong. 

When you feel like whatever is happening is the “wrong” thing, because what “should” be happening is not, then you get bothered. “The dishes shouldn’t be in the sink for more than 8 hours.” “The shoes should all be put away in the cabinet.” “They should not speak like that about another person.” You put all these conditions on what it takes to make you happy, that the world rebels and challenges you to be happy in spite of those conditions not being met. 

Now, the world doesn’t actually rebel — it’s not about you at all. However, the world doesn’t just acquiesce to your preferences just because you need them to be happy. The world will flow as the world flows, and you simply have to find yourself in it. 

You cannot control the circumstances of the world, only your response — only how you see the circumstances. The framework in which you view something decides your emotional experience. Although the thing itself could be the same, different frameworks will produce vastly different emotional responses. The Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, has a quote that reads, “Today I escaped anxiety. Or, no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions — not outside.” If you see things as a problem, then they will surely be a problem. However if you don’t assign that meaning to it, then it won’t be experienced as a problem. 

Then life acts as a self fulfilling prophecy and when you live and act like something is not a problem, and stop experiencing it as a problem…it stops being one. It fades away; you don’t notice it. It’s neutral or non-existent. Something is a problem as long as you say so. Then you will be bothered by it and the upset you feel will only further prove that it is a problem, because it being a part of your experience results in you being upset. The key is that you’re missing the crucial middle step: it being a part of your experience leading to you being upset only can happen because you allowed yourself to be upset by it. 

However if you decide something is not a problem, then you don’t feel upset by it. Then…if you’re not upset, it’s not a problem. Do you see? We have so much more power than we realize in our emotional experiences, but you deciding that something needs to bother you is what makes it bother you. You’ll notice, if you choose just to not care about something, it doesn’t affect you. Not because the thing changed its shape, but because the way you received it did. 

Marcus Aurelius also said, “You don’t have to turn this into something, it doesn’t have to upset you.” It upsetting you is only because you’re allowing it to. Maybe it’s not your preference, maybe you prefer something else much more, but just because it’s not going exactly according to your preference at this moment doesn’t have to make it bad. It’s only bad if the law you live by is, “When the things I feel are right don’t happen, then something is wrong.” 

I know this is simply so much easier said than done, but know that it is possible. You don’t have to have rules and regulations laid out for what makes something good or bad. You can choose, in every single situation, to not have a condition that needs to be met in order for you to be pleased and at peace. 

And I want to emphasize something to you: if it’s taking your peace, it’s not worth it. Throw all the principles you live by out the door if something is not actually adding to the quality of your life. This is particularly relevant for things that you have no control over — or would require deep strain to get control over. For the things in your life within your control: certainly, apply that preference or principle. But in a world such as ours where we must learn how to coexist with others in order to be happy and get somewhere in life, you have to know what principles just aren’t worth the pain of trying to enforce. 

You can go in constant circles of trying to impose your preference of lifestyle onto others and get constantly bothered when your preferences aren’t exactly mirrored by those around you, or you can let go. This doesn’t mean you always have to let go of what you prefer, just in the moments where trying to apply that preference would take more of your energy than it gives you. Because that’s the only reason we ever have preferences right? Because they make us feel better. So…if it doesn’t make you feel better, that’s your moment to let go of it. 

When things don’t go how you prefer and you get bothered by that, realize that you are bothering yourself. I know that’s a tough thing to accept at first, but when you do, you realize that you have all the power over your emotional state in every moment. That doesn’t mean that things will never bother you, but that you won’t dwell on them for as long and effectively be bothered for as long. You’ll sooner be able to catch yourself and shift direction back to feeling good. You can certainly dwell on the bad things in life, or you can shift your focus back to all that is good and beautiful. 

Even if it seems like there’s so little beauty and so much darkness, if you commit 100% of your attention to the little that is good, you turn 1% to 100%. That 1% good becomes 100% of your experience. Our lives are nothing more than what we pay attention to. That 1% rule goes for the bad as well. If you focus on the 1% bad, it will become 100% for you — because that’s all you’re looking at, and therefore experiencing. 

“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things” (NIV Philippians 4:8). If anything is excellent, think about that. Look for that little, tiny silver lining, and let that get your attention. The focus you pay to the bad, the perspective you have that something is going “wrong,” as it “shouldn’t,” the belief that something not going the way you prefer could affect you — these are the only reasons you are bothered. The thing itself — the dirty dishes, the little jabs, people being too loud — they are all neutral. As much as they seem “bad,” they actually just…are. You assign them their “badness.” 

None of the things that bother you or please you are objectively “right” or “wrong,” they simply touch a sensitivity of yours. Based on your life and history, these things carry different meanings that induce a specific emotional response for you, but as a thing themselves, they are not innately good nor bad. Their mere existence doesn’t immutably create a certain experience for you — no thing has a preordained emotional experience as its consequence. Therefore whatever you feel is unique to you and able to be changed, if you want it to. 

That thing doesn’t have to bother you — if you don’t want it to. The responsibility is yours, which can seem daunting, but luckily that means the power is yours as well. The way you feel about it is in your control.