2009年10月10日 星期六
Week Two
Many times, I get mad at people for the things they have done. However, I also hear people say: “I am doing this for you!” or “I mean well”. When I heard responses like this, I used to get even angrier. For example, when I was still an elementary student, I always got so furious when my mom cleaned my desk without telling me. I felt so offended when others touch my stuff without asking me. And my mom often responded me that:” I am doing this for you!” In hearing this, I got so irritated that I didn’t even want to talk to my mom. And I didn’t want to eat dinner, either. But all the things I had done didn’t make things better. It only made me fell hungry, and made my mom felt so sad. As I grow older, I start to calm myself down when I get mad and convince myself to rethink the whole thing. Now, when I know my mom is trying to help me get things organized instead of invading my privacy, I’ll be so thankful for the things she did for me. Though, stay calm when I am so angry is very difficult, I still try my best to do so. Because if I don’t rethink the whole thing before I get mad at others, it often causes a bad quarrel. And things can get really worse. On the contrary, if I am able to think twice before I get furious, things often turn out to be a good. For these reasons, I often rethink the whole things when I hear people say: “I am doing this for you!”
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Ha, I can't agree more that: "I always got so furious when my mom cleaned my desk without telling me. I felt so offended when others touch my stuff without asking me." Neither do I like that others touch my stuff without asking me.
回覆刪除The reasons for my anger are different though. Yeah, sometimes I may feel that my privacy is invaded. However, it's often not about my privacy (Since I protect it quite well, I'm not worried about it.), but because my "autonomy" is invaded. If I need help, I will ask for help; otherwise, I want to do it on my own. I don't want to be useless. If my opportunity to do something is deprived, I'll feel upset.
Furthermore, I think it really impolite to do such things without asking the owner, even if the helper is my mom. When it happens, I might say "Thank you, but you should have asked me first. Please ask me first next time." (Shame. It sounds more like a warning than a reminder, isn't it?)
I hope that people will respect me when they are doing things for me, and I need to be more calm and rethink the whole situation as you do. I often get things worse when I cannot control my emotions. If I could have shown a better attitude, things would have improved.
[Comments from My Blog]
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The questions ask us how we react when people claim that they are doing things for us or for our own good, and we’ll understand it when we grow up. The example about the depression, however, seems about someone who feels misunderstood. These two aspects look like quite different issues, but both related to the matter of communication. The former is the case in which we don’t understand people; the latter is the case in which we feel people don’t understand us. Then, obviously, why don’t we try to understand each other?
My answer directly to the questions is: It depends, especially on what relation between the one concerned and me: I’ll take the following into consideration: Are we remote or close? Is the situation social or personal? Are we of the same gender or two genders?
IF I know we’re different or there’s conventional ethics between us, I would try to calm down, rethink about the whole thing from a new “angle” (note: there’s a typo in the description) or with a different logic. In this case, since we’re supposed to have such different views and speech, we particularly need to communicate. As what I mentioned in Task One, it’s crucial to understand each other in spite of our different stances, for everyone has self-esteem and needs to be noticed and respected. If people are doing things for me or for a good purpose, I’ll calmly ask for their explanations to me instead of omitting this little kind effort. Nevertheless, this liberal attitude may happen only when I feel open-minded and willing to communicate.
IF the one concerned is close to me or is whom I care about very much, but he or she fails to understand me as I have expected, however, I might feel so hurt that I couldn’t calm down and rethink the situation objectively. In this case, to deal with emotions first might be better than to deal with merely the things. It sounds unreasonable and unfair to treat those who are close to us worse than those who are not, but we, including me, often make such a mistake. What we or “I” should do is that don’t take it too personally. If we can practice our virtues to those who are not close us, we should remember hold the same thoughtful attitude toward those who are close us. Thus, loving family and close friends may understand each other better.
The two conditions above are based on my own position. What if the one concerned doesn’t feel the same? It’ true that people have bias and often feel reluctant to communicate. Perhaps other strategies are suitable. There must be some other ways to solve the problem in addition to direct communication. And sometimes we should let it be without doing anything but only temporarily. It’s Okay that problems are not solved immediately, but the problem would exist and even become deep and complicated if we never untie the “knots” in our hearts, which would damage our relationships.
2.
As for the depression in the story, to the parents, I suggest that the parents should listen to their child first, so that the child would feel understood. And then the parents should offer help and support, such as positive encouragement and serious advice. Blaming their child, in their opinion, is a type of help, but it is too negative and would cause a vicious circle. Instead, it might be better to give serious yet calm advice. To the child, I propose “learning” to be optimistic. No matter what kind of personalities and problems that people have, optimistic and pessimistic people all tend to welcome only optimistic people. In the cruel reality, most people would be mean to the miserable that stay sentimental, whereas people would more easily to accept and take compassion on the miserable that always look everything on the bright side. Depression is a curable illness. Keeping hopeful will defeat it, and the experience would be a good lesson; otherwise, no one would save us if we don’t want to help ourselves.
In the second paragraph you mentioned that you care more about autonomy than privacy since your privacy was well protected. After seeing this I rethink about what I was really angry about, then I find out that maybe autonomy being invaded was part of the reason that I was so angry. And I think that both of us should put more effort to calm us down and think twice before we lose control.
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