The Mental Break

Nowadays I've been taking a much more chill approach to life. And one of the ways i've dealt with shitty people is by taking a "mental break" before choosing to respond.

A "mental break" is simply a break taken by the mind. A quick breather before I engage in furthur conversation. This takes about 2 seconds.

There are shitty people, and then there are people having a shitty day. I find both are just looking for confrontation. Especially in kitchen work, the stress of the job tends to bring out the worst in people. That stress also tends to bring out personal issues one is having.

There's this one girl at my work. And I'll put it straight..I don't like her. She's the type of person i wouldn't hang around with. And I generally find her attitude to be stinky. Her stories suck. She's always telling me about her life-which I don't care about. And when it comes to the kitchen getting busy she's a mess of stress and anger. And most of that stress and anger gets projected onto the people she shares a station with. (ME). But she's inspired me to look at how I deal with people.

You see, this same girl came into work a couple months back with a busted up ear. Now, she said she fell. But I highly doubt that. It was pretty clear she was hit. And it just so happened at the time she was breaking up with her boyfriend and moving back into her mothers house. Mid-twenties and back in the mothers house. Abusive shithead boyfriend. No real education besides highschool. Not such a great life going for her.

So perspective must be taken into why she's so callous and hard to be around sometimes. Even just a week ago she told me she's on anti-psychosis pills for anxiety attacks. So things aren't exactly peachy for her at the moment.

And this goes for a lot of people who are acting shitty or are generally shitty people. There IS a back story in 99 percent of the cases. So my mental break takes this into account. It's my goal to avoid confrontation I see as meaningless. And confrontation that plays into the hands of someone who is looking for a fight/argument.

 A lot of people place value in the ego. But I find one's ego gets in the way most of the time. You see, it's not about winning or losing. I make sacrifices for the people I care about. If someone I care about is upset, I will make an effort to discover why. If it's something I did..then we'll explore that. I don't find that the ego is any good when applied to our relationships or casual interactions with co-workers/ aquaintances. What's to prove? These people mean little or nothing to you. In fact, may as well be full of shit.

May as well be full of shit to co-workers cause you're gonna be stuck with them for 8hour shifts at times. And so you may as well pretend to give a shit about their aunt linda's thyroid problem. And you may have to politely decline their invitation to play magic cards in their basement suite. But i find being full of shit is harmless as long as you're not deceiving/hurting others.

Little white lies, as my father once said, are necessary sometimes.

The mental break takes some practice. We are quick to respond in anger/frustration/etc. This is our natural instinct. But slowing this down on a psychological level can be very beneficial. As I type this in the wee hours of the morning I can hear drunken yells and hollers. A fight perhaps? The mental break becomes harder when intoxicated.

And here is where the blog becomes a rambling mess. I'm not going anywhere near the mental state of someone is who drunk or high on drugs. That's a different blog alltogether.

peace & love