That’s Men: The big effects of small annoyances

Waiting to cross a canal bridge in Dublin on a recent sunny day, I noticed a man in a four-wheel-drive who seemed agitated. He was seated quite high off the ground and was glaring down, shaking his head, muttering, and making distressed gestures with his hands.

What seemed to have agitated him was a man in a wheelchair crossing the road, entirely legally and entirely safely. As the lights changed, and the man in the four-wheel drive went on his way, he continued to shake his head and to glare at the man in the wheelchair who had reached the other side.

Something about the wheelchair man, maybe about his audacity at being out crossing roads, seemed to have got the driver all het up. The man in the wheelchair seemed serenely unaware of this one-sided drama.

Then a phrase came to me that I have often used and that I first read in literature produced by an organisation called Recovery Inc. It goes, “People do things that annoy me, not to annoy me.” It’s a clever little quote, because it recognises that when things annoy us, we can multiply our agitation by imagining they are happening for the purpose of annoying us.

It’s a bit like listening to a dog barking in the night. It’s annoying. But once you tell yourself that the owner of the dog is probably sitting at home laughing to himself about keeping you and the neighbourhood awake – in other words, once you make it personal – your annoyance multiplies.

And so it must have been with the man in the wheelchair. His critic must have seen the mere fact of his crossing the road as giving the two fingers to all drivers and all right-thinking citizens everywhere, including him. In other words, he made it personal.

Recovery relaunch

I thought of all this when I saw that Recovery Self Help Method Ireland has been relaunched. Recovery is a worldwide voluntary organisation that started in Chicago in 1937 with the then aim of helping people to stay out of psychiatric hospitals and to live full lives.

It works through meetings and through applying the writings of its founder, Dr Abraham Low. “People do things that annoy me, not to annoy me” is one of many slogans members use to avoid getting carried away by life’s annoying situations.

Another, which I really like, is “There is no right or wrong in the trivialities of everyday life.” In other words, trivial events don’t matter and there is no point in getting upset over them. It’s one I could do with remembering more often.

Recovery has done great work internationally and in Ireland over many decades, and its relaunch here is good news. For more information, go to recovery.ie; you’ll find a list of those slogans on the international website, recoveryinternational.org.

Anam Cara

A new publication by another support group of great importance, Anam Cara, also caught my attention. The loss of a child or sibling is one of life’s hardest experiences and Anam Cara is an organisation set up by people who are going through that experience.

A new information pack from the organisation could be of great help to any bereaved person who finds themselves in the depths of pain.

The information pack covers such topics as coping with the sudden death of your child, a mother’s grief, grieving the death of a brother or sister, and a dad’s grief.

“A bomb has gone off in your life; and still every day the sun comes up and life must be faced,” says the leaflet for fathers. “At times, it feels like you’re dead inside and just going through the motions of living. But at the worst of times, you feel like you’re drowning or teetering on the edge of an abyss.”

It offers many tips based on the painful experiences of the members of Anam Cara. Its website, anamcara.ie, is one of the best I have seen and includes forums in which bereaved parents and siblings can talk to each other.

[ pomorain@yahoo.com ]

Padraig O'Morain is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His latest book is Mindfulness for Worriers. Padraig's daily mindfulness reminder is free by email.