How to Manage Stress When Everything Goes Wrong

0:00 Have you ever been so close to losing your shit that you just wanted to throw the computer out the fucking window because everything that could possibly be going wrong keeps going wrong? No. I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe it's just me. I'll tell you how I'm dealing with it, which is obviously not well, in just a minute. So Zach, just before we hit record here, was outside walking my dog.

0:42 Well, dogs, because as it turns out, I have two. Feels like nine, but I have two. And we're walking along, it's in an off leash area. Totally normal. And as we're walking back, there's a guy with his dog on a leash. So not being an asshole all of the time, I decide it's a good idea to put my leash on my dog's just in case his dog's an asshole. And I did, and as we walked by, it's a good thing I did because his dog was an asshole. So knowing that we were going to be talking about this, I took note of that because I feel like what I did was the responsible thing. Like I don't I don't need my dog's freedom to encroach on someone else's safety and security of walking their dog. Sure, it sucks. I don't like walking a dog on a leash.

1:23 But for the good of all, I sacrificed my comfort to make sure everybody else was cool. I think I am a hero. I think you're right. But it brought to light. It brought to light a couple of things that I've been really pissed off about lately, and I'll go backwards in time starting with yesterday. I met the beach and this might be a bit of a rant, and if this is not helpful for anybody, then well, this is just for me and that's fine. But I met the beach yesterday and you know I'm out in the lake swimming with the kids hanging out with friends and this one guy comes up to the beach with one of these. You know, like amphitheater speakers. Puts it right on the beach and just roars. Of course, country music.

2:05 for everybody on the lake to enjoy. And it just, it kills me when people do stuff like that. None of us want to hear this shit. Nobody invited you to bring your personal playlist for the entire goddamn beach to listen to. And finally, I was at a parade recently. And if you know me, you know I love a parade. So I was starting off on a bad foot. But I'm there waiting for the parade to start. And this family next to us, they're just chit chatting, doing their thing. And the dad in the group starts venting about the whole nut allergy thing in schools and how he thinks we're all over protective. And back when we were kids, we didn't have to do this shit.

2:48 So he just sends nuts and all of the allergens to school. Because fuck it, he doesn't care. And I was so wrestling with the like, what's my responsibility here? Is my responsibility to confront this guy and say, you're being such an asshole. How dare you? And by the way, are we a little too overprotective? Sure, maybe sometimes. But again, if not sending a peanut butter sandwich to my kid's school, makes other parents feel safe sending their kids to school, I'm happy to do it. This is coming from someone who literally moved to another country because he was sick of his kids having the threat of being killed at school every day.

3:28 But when people are just selfish and unaware of how or either either unaware or don't care how their selfish behavior impacts other people. It just at my core kills me and I don't know what my responsibility is. It's my responsibility to turn the other cheek, let that shit go, that's them, that's their life. I don't want to impose my will on theirs even though they seem to have absolutely no problem imposing their will on everyone around Yeah. So I will offer how I would handle that situation, but then I want you to tell me how you're dealing with it. because it, that is stressful. I think if, if somebody is causing harm to another person, that's when you got to, you know, step in and say something.

4:18 I mean, the P the peanut allergy guy, I'd probably, you know, like I have a friend whose son is deathly allergic to like just touching it with skin like just will send him out. there are people like that and it's not every school. Like my daughter's school there's nobody with that kind of a nut allergy so there's no restriction on it. if somebody's going to be harmed by somebody else's action and they're not aware of it then they need to know. Dude playing country music at the beach he's just an asshole and you got to move on. But tell me! We're not doing a show on mental health for you to come on and bitch about what pisses you off, even though that's what we do sometimes.

5:01 I would love to hear from you in those struggles, in those moments. How do you handle it? How do you keep from punching someone in the face? Yeah, I used to being around people that are assholes, because as it turns out, I live in society. For the most part, I just let it consume me and eat me up and piss me off. And then I, you know, try and live my life. You're right. The guy with the speaker, he's literally doing nothing illegal. There's nothing, you know, that says he cannot do what he's doing. So he's within his rights and there's very little I can do other than, you know, flash him a dirty look and try to just live my own life because whatever. I also try to see those as lessons.

5:43 So where this comes full circle for me in doing this episode is that I know I have some work to do in this area, whether it's this, whether it's any other frustrations that come up in my life that feel out of my control, like acknowledging that they are out of my control. There's very little I can do to change them. But it's also a reminder that, I constantly go back to our very first episode and it always cracks me up when people give me this advice, but I just need to meditate more. I need to practice creating that space between the stressor and the response so that I can see it as the lesson. So I can see the loud guy at the beach as the lesson to work on of letting go. He wants to live that way, I don't.

6:24 I just have such a problem other people wanting their values to be imposed on other people or their way of life to be imposed on other people. And I know like right now there's a lot of discussion about that in terms of politics. Everybody's arguing over the presidential debate or presidential election. Everyone doesn't want the other side to impose their will on the other. But there's a difference between my decision limits your freedom or limits the way you can live your life versus my position allows you to do whatever you want. And the guy with the loud music doesn't allow me to live in the beach to, you know, to be at the beach in peace.

7:04 The person, you know, parked on the street blocking traffic does not allow me to get where I need to go. The dumbass at the parade who is sending poison to the school to endanger the lives of others doesn't care that some kid might die because he was too lazy to make something other than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. While that person doesn't have the freedom to impose on them how to live their lives. So it's just. I know there's some work for me to do here. I wanted to bring it here because I would imagine a lot of people are feeling very frustrated like I am in whatever way. And it's just so hard sometimes to let go. And for me, I know now, kind of working this through again, thinking out loud, that it's an exercise in letting go that I really need to focus on.

7:51 What is the? Grant me the wisdom. me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I like the other version where there's something about assholes at the end. other version that I like has something to do with the wisdom to not snap kill people or something along those lines. Yeah, I feel like the snapping has happened too often and too frequently lately. And I think it's because of all of the things I'm not doing to take care of It's been so hard to not snap throughout the entire recording of this episode because in the 22 minutes that the recorder has been rolling, my phone has rang four times, the dog has barked three times, the maintenance guy has knocked on the door twice.

8:38 All the while I'm sitting here trying to talk about keeping shit under control, letting go of things that are out of my control, and not snapping at the smallest of things. All of these things are small, but they all pile up. And when you're already on the verge of losing your shit, It just takes one of them and I've had like nine and I am just done. You should probably just take a break and listen to a podcast. I have one. I have one if you need a recommendation. It is on Spotify and Apple and all the places that you get podcasts.

9:18 The Fit Mess. Awesome, I'll check it out. There's probably even a new episode next week at that website, thefitmass .com. Thanks for listening. I'm gonna go lose my shit now. See everyone. Actually, we keep the recording going? I wanna see this. might be gold, who knows?