How Not to Be "That" Person

128: or: how to survive stress without becoming a cautionary tale

Impossible deadlines. Bosses that make you grind your teeth. Traffic jams. Neighbor’s dogs that bark at all hours for no good reason. The thing that was supposed to arrive TODAY that didn’t arrive, and you needed it.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to scream into a pillow?

But then I came across this Marcus Aurelius quote:

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

Excuse me, Mr. Emperor, sir, but are you saying that the stress I feel isn’t because of these things? That it’s because of how I react to them?

That can’t be right. Have you met my inbox?

But the more I sat with it, the more I realized (begrudgingly) that he had a point.

Stress, more often than not, isn’t about the thing itself. It’s about the meaning we attach to it. The expectations we have. The belief that we can control things we very clearly cannot. (Ugh. That last one…)

Events themselves aren’t distressing. It’s our interpretation that makes them so. (Which is both empowering and mildly infuriating when you just want to blame the traffic.)

Traffic is just traffic — until I decide it’s ruining my day. A delayed flight is just a delayed flight — until I make it mean I’ll never get to where I need to be on time and OMG, all the plans I made are now useless. (Dramatic? Sure. But tell that to my brain when I’m stuck at the airport.)

That’s the tricky part. Our brains are meaning-making machines, and sometimes, they hand us interpretations that turn minor inconveniences into full-blown existential crises.

The O’Hare Guy

Speaking of flight delays, I remember once being stuck in Chicago O’Hare. On the third announcement of yet another delay, this guy went totally bonkers. Yelling, throwing a tantrum right there in the middle of the crowd. He got on his cell phone and proceeded to talk VERY loudly to whomever the unfortunate person was on the other line, complaining about the airline, the poor people at the counter, the weather.

People were moving away from him lest they become another source of irate.

I said to myself, I never ever want to be like this person. Not even the slightest. That’s when I started asking myself a simple question whenever I felt stress creeping in:

📌 Ok, Lou, what kind of person do you want to be in this situation?

It’s a grounding question. A reset button. Because if I let stress run the show, I become the version of myself I like the least. The one snapping at people, cursing under my breath, and stress-eating an entire bag of chips.

And this is where the Stoics (and, you know, probably the Buddha too) would tell me: “Of course stress is inevitable, but suffering over it? That’s optional.”

Epictetus (another Stoic, who I suspect would have handled flight delays far better than THAT guy) once said:

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

In other words, I can’t control the traffic, or the price of eggs, or the fact that the neighbor’s dog likes to bark right when I’m recording the podcast. But I can decide whether I go full meltdown in an airport or just take a deep breath and buy myself an overpriced coffee.

• • •

I won’t pretend I always handle stress gracefully (see: family-size bag of chips). But I do know this: Stress is inevitable, but how much I let it take over is — if not entirely, then at least in part — up to me.

And you know, that’s oddly comforting.

How are you with stress? If the Buddha were watching you handle stress, would he nod approvingly… or shake his head and order another round of wine? (Does the Buddha drink wine? 🤔)

💭 muse

“Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterward either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone.” — Rebecca Solnit, Hope In The Dark

🍹 reader shout-out

A warm high five to WAGO reader

Sandra Pawula

! A former mindfulness coach, she shares tips on calming the mind, healing the heart, and trusting inner wisdom in her publication, Wild Arisings. Be sure to check it out!"

🍭 you said

Last week, I fessed up that I’ve had a hard time with the popular list-3-things-gratitude-practice, and was cheered that I wasn’t the only one!

Lani V. Cox

though, threw out a curveball and said the 3-things-list didn’t work for her but the 10-things-practice does! Whoa! Check out the comments here.

💬 last word

I thought long and hard (about 12 seconds) about what song best captures the essence of this essay and came up with this.

Don’t drive anyone — or yourself — crazy. Breathe deeply… and maybe avoid screaming into your phone at the airport. 🤗

May the odds be ever in your favor,
Lou Blaser