On Being Annoyed

I don’t usually do new year’s resolutions. But after spending four days of Christmas with relatives – yes, that’s right, FOUR days – and, naturally, getting annoyed with them, and then getting annoyed with myself for getting annoyed with them, etcetera etcetera… I realized I’m always annoyed with something. And I decided that something had to change.

So I resolved to be less annoyed at things and less annoyed with people, myself included, or maybe even especially myself.

But it’s not easy. Being annoyed makes me tense, being tense makes me more annoyed, and breaking out of this vicious cycle is turning out to be harder than I expected. After trying for about a week, I still find it very hard to keep myself from getting annoyed with everything: slow people in the supermarket, slow people in front of the traffic light, with my bike for being old and half-broken, with myself for not fixing my bike or buying a new one, with losing part of my earring, with someone for not helping me find it… And then of course every time, I get extra annoyed with myself for being annoyed at something stupid and minor that I really shouldn’t be annoyed at.

And now of course I’m annoyed with myself for bitching and whining about this stuff! Gaaah.

Guys, how do I get out of this vicious cycle? Any advice?

Am I secretly a capitalist?

After just handing in a probably futile attempt at a project proposal, I am wondering about the following: am I secretly a capitalist? Recently, the workers have taken over one of our labs. Well informed readers will know what labs I mean. Suddenly the staff room became a meeting room for the building maintainers. The staff room used to  be my refuge. A calm nice place, where I could boil some water, hide my expensive items from students, sit, chat, read in quiet, etc. But now it’s a meeting room. And it’s high tech! And it looks nice, still. But my access card doesn’t give me access. And I haven’t seen it being used. Ever. Ever ever.

I moved to another private room on the 4th floor. It was always open, but alright, it was large and spacious, and I did not have to mingle with students. Yeah! Or not… The private room was taken by the building maintainers, to work out of. A real private office and a meeting room. What luxury. For someone with half my salary. I’ve been sending complaints to our complaints department and they tell me to f*ck off (not in so many words).

Now I sit in a drafty hallway. I carry my laptop everywhere, I can’t even hang my coat somewhere. Is my salary still the only thing that separates me from the plain folk? The hallway happens to be near one of the private offices. Here they come. I look into the guy’s eyes. His cheap workclothes, his dumb one long eyebrow stare startles me. Even he realises. Something went horribly wrong here.