The other day my smartphone ran out of battery on the train and digital Suica stopped working.
I got off, told the station staff, "Sorry, my phone died..." and they kindly said, "Ah, this machine (at the staff window) still works even without charge! Could you try placing it?" — and I got through fine. There are probably lots of passengers like me, but they handled it so pleasantly that I felt very reassured. Thank you, JR staff.
(I was so happy I almost titled this blog "Thank you, JR" — but lining up corporate names like Coca-Cola and JR felt a bit odd, so I skipped it this time.)
Anyway: when asking or answering something unclear, or when asking or being asked for a favor, some people become more high-handed than they need to be. Is it embarrassment at not knowing, or the idea that you can only gain by coming on stronger than the other person from the start? I keep thinking that's a really dubious way to think.
What's sad is when you sense that person probably wasn't originally like that — that endless dealings with difficult people eventually wore them into this response.
Spinal-reflex outbursts of negative emotion aren't desirable. Positive emotions are basically fine to say out loud and act on as much as you want; negative ones aren't.
Anger especially. I struggle with unreasonable attitudes and demanding ones (a literal gloss might be "excessive demands"? I can't think of a perfect Japanese equivalent on the spot), and I reflexively get irritated.
This is anger-management territory, I think, and there seem to be two patterns of coping.
(1) How you perceive the real world in the first place
(2) After receiving a negative emotion, how you sort that emotion
Both are probably necessary.
Extremely put: (1) shut down interaction with the outside world as much as possible, stand on the premise of not expecting much from others, and (2) the moment you notice a negative emotion, analyze and organize it.
(1) costs something — changing jobs or moving — but the impact is huge: the total volume of incoming negative emotion drops. Still, communication with others won't realistically go to zero, so (2) is needed too.
(Incidentally, under (1), looking down on people entirely is one option. Honestly it doesn't sound good — but if the alternative is letting those unpleasant people ruin your feelings, looking down on them from the start can be the better move. In life, whoever says what, you come first.)
(2) is brain training — what gets called anger management.
Meditation, popular lately, is also a way to control emotion better.
I've tried meditating but I'm not used to it. My new workplace encourages it, so I'll try getting used to it little by little. If it sticks, I'll write another post.
Setting meditation aside for now, there are many ways to sort negative emotion.
When I do, I often recall a line from the opening of The Great Gatsby:
"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." (paraphrase)
Read a certain way it can sound condescending, but it isn't — it's about approaching others with imagination. A very gentlemanly idea I like, so I refer to it often.
That said, the world has more demanding people than you'd think — people who free-ride the moment you show a gap.
Ideally you'd meet even them with compassion, but I'm immature, so I still get irritated. Training needed.
What I thought of recently: the moment I get irritated, decide to think about it later. Intentionally delay the reaction. I'm a worrier, so I immediately imagine the worst case and sink. My stress tolerance is very low. So I landed on delaying the reaction itself first.
The image is like a PC popup: instead of Yes or No, you hit the × and close it.
It isn't a fundamental fix, but I've heard anger peaks in about three seconds — so if you react immediately and push the peak higher, it takes a long time to come back down. If you rewind five seconds and think from there, you haven't only postponed it; the peak is probably lower too.
Along with meditation, I'll try training this approach.
Finally: when I think about what kind of businessperson I want to become, images of high expertise and skill, or people who deliver results and bring in profit, are of course on the list.
I'd like to become someone like that — but lately I simply want to be someone who feels good to work with. Even if I can't be a Dream Team superstar, I'd like to be the person people add saying, "working with them feels good, so let's include them too." (That too is a kind of expertise.) I want to work with people who feel good to work with as well.
Well, my picture of the future will change again. I'll keep at it.
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