Excuse me, are you irritated?

People get irritated with all sorts of things and for all sorts of reasons. Someone close to me fits the bill to a perfect T.

If there are road repairs going on, or if father turns on the radio too loudly to await the weekly 4D results, person X will get irritated. It's not just irritation mind you, the word is literally written all over the face. Yes, I may have protrayed person X as an overly-sensitive person relative to the surroundings but does it warrant such a reaction?

According to some theory which I studied years ago, an Action triggers a Behavior and thus results in a Consequence (this is some ABC Theory). While we cannot control the action, we can control our behaviour and thus softening the impact on consequence. What person X might have done, taking the case of the road repairs for instance, would be to control behaviour. Put aside the negative thoughts and think positive. 'The road works are necessary so that the car park downstairs will look more beautiful (or something to that extent).' With this thought, person X might not feel as irritated and would be able to endure the noise for some time.

It might be easy to just point fingers and offer some 'impractical' solutions, but I think life is too short to get over such 'kachang puteh' (read minor) issues.

It's all in the mind... You are what you think and you react according to what you think.

K1