Knowing when to care

Just a thought.

I feel like one of the most important things in life is knowing when to take things with a grain of salt and well, when not to. As a very tempermental person, this is something I've often struggled with in life.

I see it as a form of prioritizing. We only have so much emotional stamina, for lack of other words. Therefore you need to be able to assess the importance of an incident to decide how serious of a response you want to have. I don't think its always a decision that needs to be made consciously, I think its just a safe way of doing things. If you're very emotionally stable and never overreact then maybe you can trust your "learned" response. I think its pretty safe to say we all have our own "normal" way of reacting to things, for example if I had my watch stolen from me I would feel betrayed. If I then had the misfortune of having my wallet stolen I would once more feel the same way. All this must seem pretty obvious.

My point is, you have control over your responses, or rather you can have control over them if you decide its worth it. When something bad happens its easy to fall into the overreaction trap. Instead of switching gears into automatic after an incident, I think its best to consciously decide how you want to let it influence you.

Easier said then done ey? I'd even go as far as saying way easier...

Does this seem important to you? At my age, I see it as a step in learning who you are as a person, and being okay with it obviously. Its too easy to simply be okay with yourself without understanding why you are the way you are. In my opinion anyway.

Any thoughts?

Jess, you elucitaded this concept of response patterns to me, so thank you.

-Jaypee

ps: Incase you're wondering why all this: my wallet was stolen last weekend and I didn't freak out! Instead I carried on partying, on other's expenses of course ;)