34.40 Managing Annoyances — F/U2

77% Weekly Newsletter
Religion-Outside-The-Box

The 77% Weekly

The 40/52-weeks-a-year, spiritual-religious newsletter

Another reflection on annoyances…
Wednesday, I sent our two of my reflections on the exercise — Managing Annoyances. I have gotten so many wonderful comments back from other folk who are doing this too.

I asked David B. who sent me the following if he wouldn’t mind if I forwarded this that he wrote to you.  With his permission, here are his words:

I haven’t been too diligent on the notepad, but I have been keeping a tab.  Very humbling actually.  I am annoyed often and oh, oh, how I desperately wanted to write down WHY I was annoyed!  But this one, THIS ONE is real – just look at what “they” did!   I just KNOW that my annoyances are JUSTIFIED.  I am right, they are wrong.  How could they?  I don’t have time for this.  etc etc.  
Upon reflection the majority of my annoyances centre around time.  I have a constant background belief that there is not enough of it, and if you get in the road of me doing what I want to do, now, well, I will get annoyed or worse.  I may honk the horn, or write a letter to management or or or.  
I corroborate your observation that noting the times I get annoyed is exposing the little conscious choice made to do so each time.  Oh so subtle is the Human Being!!  We trick ourselves into thinking this and that when it is ENTIRELY our own creation.  I am such a pain in the backside to myself.  It is hard to believe, but there is the fact of the matter.  Event, observation, seeing habit or judgement, choice to “pick it up” and reaction.  It is our choice to not pick it up if we choose to. 

Here is to hoping that all of our weekends are filled with less annoyances, more wisdom, and some compassion for ourselves as we get through this crazy thing called life. I won’t be e-mailing on Monday, it’s our off-week.  I hope we all find/create some time off.

Rb

Annoyance Bingo

Annoyance Bingo.Lose your patience. Win big. ✧✧✧ Game play begins Tuesday, April 21, 2026, at 12:00am PT — First Prize: $100 ✧✧✧ The Origin of Annoyance Bingo. For years, I’ve asked mourners at funerals to track the least compassionate things said in an attempt to comfort them — and send me the best (and worst) examples. The idea: when someone

Read More »
Image of a child doing a shoulder ride.

Wastefully

  Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong would answer the question “how shall we express love?” with a single word: “Wastefully.”    ✧✧✧   We don’t express love wastefully. A story and then some thinking about why.   ✧✧✧   It’s 2006. I’m in NYC to—among other things—celebrate the fifth birthday of my first niece, Maya.  I wait outside her school

Read More »

“I love you” x 3

For reasons a team of psychoanalysts might have been able to crack, my dad couldn’t get the three-word phrase “I love you” to come out of his mouth. I knew he loved us. It’s just he couldn’t say it. I rationalized that I didn’t need to hear those three words, but it hurt anyway. This is the story about how

Read More »
77% Weekly Newsletter
77% Weekly Newsletter