I'm very bad at leaving problems as they are.
Even relatively light problems — leaving them, or leaving them unaddressed — makes me restless. Exaggerating: my head feels like it'll break. In a word, I'm very impatient.
If I leave a problem, my stomach goes bad and I feel stress.
A light example: unless a message from someone is low priority and low urgency, I can't rest until I reply ASAP.
When meeting people, I hate making them wait. If I'm late for a reason, or I learn the other person arrived first — even in a train or taxi where rushing won't help — I feel awful. Even reading a book, nothing sticks.
It's the same when I hear other people's stories.
Listening to work gripes, worries, or consultations, I often feel sorry for them and take it personally.
I advise "maybe you should handle it this way?" — but they often don't feel it's that serious and don't think action is needed. I keep fretting, and wonder at doing nothing.
And if I hear the same gripe or worry again with no action taken, honestly I get fed up. It's a shortcoming of mine: I can't simply let people's talk wash over me.
Sometimes I even say: "(If nothing's happening and there's no progress,) listening wears me out — sorry, but please stop." They look sheepish.
In that sense, for gripes, worries, and consultations, I'm not a great listener. The common line is that women's consultations often want empathy, not solutions — and if I take that at face value, people who consult me probably don't leave feeling lighter. (※ Of course this theme isn't limited to when the other person is a woman.)
To be clear: for serious worries and real complaints, even if I feel a bit worse, I listen alongside them — and of course I don't ask them to stop talking.
When I hear gossip, worries, or consultations and feel "I'm different," it's what I wrote at the start: whether to leave the problem as it is.
Framing it that way might make me (who doesn't postpone) sound superior — it doesn't. If postponing makes you anxious, things going off plan can stress you more than others, tank performance, and make you harsh to people around you — and you might take everything too heavily and interfere. I can't say that never happens.
On the other hand, postponing can let problems spread into something serious, or cost you trust.
But postponing has upsides too. A classic case is problems time will solve. In relationships especially, forcing a quick fix can tangle things worse.
Admitting both have pros and cons, I still have a clear reason I really don't want to postpone: whether I mean to carry responsibility. In other words: whether I have the resolve to clash head-on (sashichigaeru — go down together if we must).
That sounds grand, but facing problems is hard — so I think this point is unavoidable and important.
Simply: if someone in your circle behaves badly, can you tell them to leave right now? Or will you wait for them to change? Not a dry-vs-tolerant binary — either way, the problem must be solved someday.
If a boss is arrogant and picking fights, don't you need to argue firmly even with a superior, or leave the organization boldly? (You can't fight every time, so I'm not saying act on everything. Either way, better not dump boring gripes on others.)
Basically I also believe people don't change, and my expectations of others are low. Not about skill or ability — better not assume others will help you, better not assume they're interested in you, and better not expect them to notice, change, and grow.
I've written several times that treating people with love matters, and I treasure that from the heart — but I've also felt fully that some people just don't fit you. In every community there are people who communicate with malice from the start.
That's why, when a problem arises, I feel it's important to face it even if you hate it — with the resolve to clash head-on.
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