Losing patience with people

I seem to be losing patience a bit lately. With people. Let me give you some examples.

I'm working on this website idea. Been working on it for about two months now, although I wouldn't call it full-time. In theory, I am cooperating with 3 other people, but I'm the only one who is job-less and therefore working on it the most. After discussing our idea and deciding on what to do I moved back to my parents' house and started working from home. Since our product is a website there's no need to see each other face to face all the time. I was hoping that working with other people would give me the motivation I need to see the project through to its release. Instead, I found out that the only person who can motivate me, is myself.

It's become quite clear to me that this idea of ours is a lot more on my mind than it is on theirs. This is not surprising. After all, they've got full-time jobs and other things to worry about (and I don't blame them for that at all!), whereas I have practically nothing else of importance to do. That's why I tend to do things myself first, and then when I'm not happy with the result, I ask the others to step in. This is also where I get frustrated, because this is exactly where the lack of mind-time shows. Whenever something pops up where I don't have confidence in my skills, I ask the others to look at it, but that's where the lack of project occupation in their mind shines through. When it comes down to it, it's faster and more efficient for me to learn whatever skill I don't already possess, than it is to ask one of the others who does possess that skill to spend time on it. Oh, the joys of having too much time on my hands. I can get skilled at a whole lot of things. I used to lazily wait for other people to do their tasks and spend my time doing something else while waiting, but I'm starting to realize that that method is not going to get me anywhere. If you want something done, do it yourself. Also: do it first, ask permission later.

Another such example is about my bicycle. I spent a shitload of money getting it in tip-top shape last week, yet the repairman said there was no need to fix my rear tube because it wasn't leaking, despite my specifically telling him to replace the rear tube because it was. I don't get how this can happen. The guy did an absolutely brilliant job on the chain and gears, yet he didn't see a need to fix the most important problem? Typical, I say. It's not his problem, so why bother? He'd rather fix stuff that costs a lot than replace a tube that cost 5 euros. I went to a different store, bought a new tube and replaced it myself. Other people could have done this for me, and could possibly have done a better of it than I did, but by doing it myself I improved my skills and decreased my reliance on other people. It's a different story but the message if the same. I cannot repeat this often enough: if you want something done, do it yourself. I'm still waiting for that special someone to prove me wrong on this..

The third example is the ignorant Facebook comment some guy made about the earthquake Japan. Normally I would not get riled up by something like this. I see a whole bunch of stupid stuff online every day, and I manage to ignore it perfectly. Even when I am more directly confronted by something I don't like, I tend to just avoid or ignore it. I certainly don't go out of my way to confront them with their stupidity, yet I did this time. I know what it's like to argue on the internet, but being confronted by such great stupidity in my vicinity, I couldn't help myself. I'm out of character, again.

I do still believe that avoidance is the best way to handle situations like this. Why start an argument if you can avoid one, right? The thing is, I've been perfecting my argument avoidance techniques for years now, and life gets really boring if you just ignore everything that bothers you. I'm not saying that my calling that Facebook commenter an asshole enlightened him and made him change his ways, but it sure as hell is satisfying to troll around a bit when you know you're in the right. Creating conflict can be a way of shining new light onto an issue. Perhaps it's time that I created a bit more conflict in my life.

Posted in Daily Life , Thoughts

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