Giving up Annoyance for Lent

So I attended a training yesterday and although I’m not quite sure if it was truly helpful in reaching the goal it was meant to achieve, I did take one thing from it. The speaker talked about how we all have favorite colors or foods or movies or places. He challenged us into wondering what favorite emotion we have. And by that he meant, what emotion do we tend to fall into (subconsciously really) the most. He admitted that in the past his favorite emotion was anger. He didn’t realize it until someone pointed out to him that he was always angry and wondered what he would choose to be angry about that day. That made him stop and think and try to change the way he did things.

This got me to wondering- what emotion do I tend to find myself constantly in? Ideally we all want to fall into the emotion of happiness but for many of us that is a goal not a reality. There are few happy go lucky people out there.

I know that my “go to” emotion is annoyance. I am VERY easily annoyed by people, pets, TV shows, weather, work, food. You name it. Obviously this is not a very good state of existence. The reality is, if you have a “favorite” emotion, nine times out of ten you will feel it. Meaning, if it is your thing to be angry at stuff you will find yourself, well, angry at stuff. So for me, annoying things happen to me because I am easily annoyed. If I make the chose to look at those things differently, will they be annoying? Will I be encouraged to react differently? As a result will different outcomes occur?

This sounds a bit like “The Secret” but it really makes sense. Like does attract like.
You date losers because you put out the energy that losers are all you date (even if you say it angrily you are affirming it). If you are annoyed with your weight you will continue to be annoyed with it (ie, not lose weight). The idea is that if you look at yourself, life, others in a different manner they will begin to emulate the positive outlook you are now giving them.

I don’t know about the reality of this but I figure it can’t hurt. So, even though I am not Catholic, I am giving up annoyance for lent. Starting today and ending April 11th, I will try to view things in a more positive manner. I have already been tested twice today. One by a coworker who I find annoying in every conceivable way. She already did something that would annoy me today but I tried to catch myself and smile instead. I felt my blood pressure lowering. Then I had a meeting with my boss about my performance. I wanted an exceptional in a certain area and she gave me a fully successful. When I asked her why, her reasoning did not help me at all and I was all set to get annoyed when I stopped to think about what she was saying. In the government, directors only get so much money for awards and she was pretty limited so she couldn’t give exceptional in everything. She just didn’t have the funds but she said she thought I was doing a great job and thought the ratings she gave me showed I knew and did my job well, plus I would still get a monetary award for a fully sucessful. I chose to focus on that and again, feel a lot better than I did when I first saw the ratings. I am also going to take the time to really decipher what she was telling me so that I can look at improving as just an opportunity and not a message that I’ve been doing wrong. No one is perfect and we always need something to aspire to in order to keep us going and interested.

It’s a struggle but I think I’m going to give it a go.