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The mind is a strange place. Thoughts are hard to control. And I’m not talking about your typical guy crime-of-the-mind stuff. I’m talking about having disciplined thoughts, not being petty, and being able to push out of your head thoughts that don’t belong there. Like jealousy, annoyance, or uncalled-for anger. These are all forms of pettiness that I try to avoid. Unsucessfully, sometimes, but I try nonetheless.

I find the best thing to do (and this one works especially well for jealousy and unhealthy worrying) is focus on concretes. And by concretes I mean things that you’re sure of. Things that you know. Like, if I’m worrying like a silly git that my wife (hypothetically) doesn’t love me anymore, the concrete I can focus on is the fact that she’s told me (hypothetically) that she does. Or if I’m jealous of another man’s car or house or something, the concrete is the fact that in the end none of these things really matter. People aren’t friends with me because of what I have, but because of what I am. The kinds of people that are friends because of stuff are predatory, leaches. They suck the blood out of you and leave when they’re full.

For annoyance, there’s not really much I can do. Some people are, frankly, annoying by virtue of the fact that they were born. Annoying to everyone. But there’s also people that are annoying only occasionally, and annoying only when they do certain things. And there’s people that clash with other people just because their personalities are so different or so very much the same. Ever notice that you tend to get annoyed with people when they have the same faults as you? I’ve noticed that, and it drives me crazy at myself.

Petty anger is another good one. Personally, I don’t typically display my anger with fits of rage, yelling, that sort of thing. I sort of do a slow burn and then gradually fizzle out. But both blowing up and letting the acid drip go on inside are not good options. Now if anyone has tips on controlling anger, I want them. Because frankly there are one or two people in my life that know exactly how to drive me absolutely nuts, and they take pride in doing it. I supposed sometimes it helps to focus instead of on the person and their absolute angrifyingness on the fact that they are human, and I’m human, and there’s no point in one imperfect being getting mad at another imperfect being, but there you have it.

How do you control anger when someone is getting under your skin on purpose? Because, honestly, the anger doesn’t spring so much from what the person is doing or not doing, but the fact that they’re trying at it, with an intent to make me angry. Like teasing when I was a child. It didn’t bother me so much what they said as that they were trying to tease me! I get tense just thinking about it.