IMPATIENCE AND ITS BRETHREN FRUSTRATION, ANGER, RUDENESS – THEY ALL COME FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE.
That co-worker or boss or friend or family member who is frantic and upset and frustrated that [the thing] isn’t done or isn’t working out – their impatience, their frustration, even their rudeness about the whole thing – it doesn’t really come from a conscious choice to be that way, but…
…it comes from fear: fear of an unfavourable result or repercussion if [the thing] isn’t done by a certain time or a certain way or correctly.
…it comes from stories: a narrative(s) they’ve created about the possible reasons or meaning behind ‘why’ [the thing] isn’t done, is late, isn’t working out,
isn’t happening as they’d expected, etc.
~ Maybe the fear and stories come from personal experience.
~ Maybe they come from observation of others or similar situations.
~ Maybe they come from warnings given by others.
It could be any of the above or myriad other possibilities, but whatever it is, it’s also all filtered through their own lens of how they see the world.
I’m not saying impatience and anger and rudeness is all ok and should be given a pass because there is something behind it.
I simply invite each of us to consider looking for the source of what the other person is fearing when they are expressing anger or frustration. How can we help to address that? Or can we simply come to accept that there is a root cause beyond what we see on the surface in that moment – instead of being reactive to the way the fear is showing up? ❤
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