I have a flat tire. Which is annoying as fuck. If only because I have to get it to the tire place with a flat tire. I went to the pharmacy to pick up my med. A man in the parking lot politely told me my tire was flat and suggested I put air in it. I went to the gas station to do that, and it filled ,but then flattened again. On the drive home, it was very flat. Like really flat. I called my brother (because he is my handyman), and he’s coming over tomorrow morning to help me put the spare on. I made an appointment with a tire place for Saturday afternoon so as long as I don’t have an emergency today (knock on wood), I should be fine.
It reminded me, though, that minor irritants can be more aggravating on the daily than majjor issues. Like, I went through somehing no one else has (dying twice and being in a coma), but except for the first few weeks home, it didn’t really affect my life in a significant way*.
This still blows my mind when I think about it in depth. Something that literally changed my life was also something I did not have to deal with (physically) a few weeks after it happened. How can a flat tire be more irritating than dying twice??
My theory is that because I’m someone with PTSD and a ‘worst case scenario’ mentality, I’m geared towards the hard stuff. I am aces in a crisis. I’m calm, cool, and collected. When it comes to petty shit, though, I am so irritated. It takes me zero seconds to not lose my cool. I think it’s because my mentality is that the small shit should not be happening. The big stuff? Yeah, I expect that. But the small stuff? Not expected.
Also, not having a car is a pain in the ass. Even if I don’t use it on the regular, not being able to use it is annoying.
Side note: This is very much the mentality between want and need. People bitch all the time about how much gas costs, but then buy an overpriced, overroasted Starbucks coffee every day. One is a need and the other is a want. If you have to pay for something (gas), then of course you’re going to be more irritated when it costs more than you think it should than if it’s a cup of coffee that you choose to buy.
It’s not like I think I am exempt from the small irritations in life. Nor is it that I feel like I should be immune from being irritated because I weathered something big. But it just reminds me that life does have small problems that you need to deal with.
One thing I’ve noticed since my medical crisis is that I have a harder time keeping my temper under control. I’ve had trouble with it all my life, but it was rare when I would explode. I do more so now, and I don’t like it.
So. This is another thing I want to work on in this year. To chill the fuck out. Even if it’s just me screaming at the PC as I’m dying in a game, I don’t like it. So I’m going to try to do some slow and smooth breathing when I feel myself getting angry. I know that sometimes it’s me choosing violence, but other times, I don’t feel as if I’m making a choice.
That’s not really my main focus, though. So let me get back to what I was talking about yesterday–slow cooking. (crockpot). I have wanted to use one for a long time, but I got turned off by my instapot failure. I was talking to my brother about this. He laughed and said that you can use an instapot as a slow cooker, too. I said I knew, but I was too overwhelmed by the instapot and all its buttons and tech to do so. I didn’t want something that connected with my phone or had apps or had to be pressurized or whatever. I just wanted low, high, and warm (as settings).
Look. I use tech on the regular. I’m a heavy user, in fact. I use an Android instead of an iPhone in part because I like to be in control of everything on my tech devices. But that doesn’t mean I want all my appliances to talk to each other via tech.
Something that drew me to Taiji was the fact that it’s the lazy person’s martial art. The basic idea is to use as little energy as possible for the maximum result. That’s me. I want to use as little tech as possible for the result I want. Take the thermometer. I simply need the house to be heated and cooled to the temps I want at the times I want. I don’t need it to be synched to my phone so I can fiddle with it all day long.
My brother doesn’t get this because he wants all the tech all the itme. More tech more better according to him. He’s not wrong–for him. For me, the less tech the better. I am a minimalist at heart, which probably wouldn’t be evident to anyone who saw me.
In addition, I know myself. The more obstacles for me to do a thing, the less likely I’ll do a thing. That was the issue with the instapot. I felt like there were so many things you had to do before actually using it for what I wanted it to do, I lost interest and motivation in the actual cooking itself. I know that if I’m going to cook, I have to make it as easy as possible.
From what I know about the crockpot, you only have to throw everything you want to produce a dish into the crockpot, and then let it simmer for several hours. That’s it! I know I have to prep ahead of time by chopping the veggies and maybe tearing the meat apart, but other than that, it should be fine. RIGHT?
*Well, having my parents here did, but that wasn’t because of the medical crisis itself. That was more because of the deep family dysfunction.