Wanzology

Heart Of The Matter

Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome!!! Welcome back to another episode of WANZOLOGY!! I am your host, The Wanz and yes, welcome to another Wednesday. Which, if you're scoring at home, is another day that ends in ‘Y’. Yes, of course, they all do, but that's the nature of the thing. Okay, how ya doing? You good? You good? You been good? You gonna be good? It's up to you. You get to make that choice, it's not up to me.

Today I have a very interesting thought. There is a song by Don Henley called Heart Of The Matter, and in the middle of that song is this wonderful bridge and it goes like this:

“There are people in your life who've come and gone,
You know, they let you down, they really hurt your pride.
You've got to put it all behind you ‘cause life goes on.
You keep carrying that anger, it'll eat you up inside, baby.”

And that comes to mind because of what's going on in my world these days. It is centered around resentment. Trying not to hold on to a resentment, trying not to make a resentment, trying to ‘nip it in the bud’ before takes over my behavior. The song came to mind because I've been worrying about what people think. Namely, people who have said or say they care about me, yet I never hear from them. They don't check on me. Sometimes that gets me feeling ‘some sort of way’. Feeling ‘some sort of way’ is a luxury that I really can't afford. Um, having been sober for a long, long time, I recognize that when I start thinking about what I think I should be getting from someone else, that's bad because then I start asking myself, “Well, why is it not happening?”, which is bad. It would probably be better if I were to talk with this person, whoever they may be and tell them how I feel, but I don't do that.

Now, in most cases, I don't do that because I'm afraid of not only what they're going to say, but what I'm going to say. I don't want to say the wrong thing. And I also don't want to come across like I'm whining or bitching and moaning or complaining either, because I realize people have their own life. They're out doing the same thing I'm doing and for me to have the expectation that they would take time out of their existence to reach out to me, well, I don't control them, so why would I have that expectation? Short answer is when we want things and I'm speaking for myself, maybe we have this in common and maybe we don't, but when we want things from other people, we have a bad habit of not asking them for them. We have a bad habit of thinking, oh, they just ‘know’ (in air quotes), they just know what we want or what we need. And when they don't come through, sometimes we get a little pissed off.

So what do you do? This is kind of a two-fold thing. You can either nip it in the bud so that you don't have the expectation, or you can realize that you have the expectation or expectations, and you nip it in the bud. Now, nipping it in the bud is not that easy because you have to admit to yourself that, “yeah, I'm feeling some sort of way because I think someone should be doing something that they're not doing”, whatever that is. I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be like a romantic relationship. It could be your boss at your job.

It could be your kid not listening to you, it could be the kid's teacher or coach. It could be the checkout person saying that you didn't push the right button or your coupon is expired, it could be the cop that pulls you over because you swear the light was yellow, it doesn't matter where it comes from, what matters is that you have it. You have that feeling that you're owed something from somebody else for whatever reason and sometimes, I mean, sometimes it's harmless. Like when you open the door for someone and they walk through, well, everything's fine and good until they don't say “thank you”. And then for a brief millisecond, you're like, what the absolute ‘efff’, sometimes it's a little maddening, isn't it?

Simple things. But in the course of expecting something from someone else, now you can either, you can either stop this before it even starts by realizing that everybody is going through the same thing you're going through. They're just trying to live their life and you may not be close to anything near the frontal lobe of their brain. You may not be at the top of their priority list. They might be thinking about who knows what, it’s just not you. Now, why is this a problem? Well, because as much as we humans hate to admit it, uh, as it was told to me once, “I may not be much, but I'm all I think about.”.

Is that true with you? You think about yourself a lot, what you should or could be doing, what you've done? Well, where the hell are these accolades? Where's the pomp and circumstance? Where's the big THANK YOU!!! Where's the, “Oh, I really appreciate it.”? Where's the recognition? Sounds stupid, but yet it happens and you feel ‘some sort of way’. So in the beginning, it's pretty easy to recognize when it happens because all of a sudden you were really smiling, happy-go-lucky and now all of a sudden you're not smiling anymore, and you're looking at someone else going, “What the absolute ‘F’ is wrong with you? Didn't you just recognize that I did something? Didn't you see me? Didn't you hear me? Didn't you feel me?”, well no, and even if they did, why are they not responding? Why are they not replying to you in a manner that would be totally acceptable? Well, they're not thinking of you at that moment, MOE-RON!!

They’re living their own life. And if you breathe, three breaths in, three breaths out, very slowly when you start feeling ‘some sort of way’ as you're looking at that other person, you might realize you are not their priority, and that's okay. You might realize, oh, they, they were in the middle of doing something else, and I just kind of stepped in a little bit.
But first you have to recognize that you feel that gnawing little, “What the F? Are you kidding me?”, and then you start looking at what you did. I can guarantee you, as soon as you start looking at what you did and then you look at somebody else thinking that you're gonna get something back from them, there’s your sign. But when you see it at the beginning, it's pretty easy to go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa!! Hold on, TEX!!! I'm sorry, whoops. Oh well…”, and then you move on. For one reason or another, you come to the conclusion that, “Eh, this wasn't the time that I was gonna get whatever that was.”, or you just carry on and don't even notice. Maybe you're the one who, like, doesn't notice that you've done something for someone, or to someone, and therefore you're not expecting anything. That's possible. But more times than not, like the whole door thing, when you open the door for someone and they pass through and they don't say, “Well, thanks!”, or, “Thank you!”, or, “I appreciate it!”, they don't acknowledge it in some way, for a split second, you're just wanting to smack them in the back of the head, literally, but you know you can't.

That feeling, you starting to get pissed off, that's an expectation. Anytime you think that somebody should be doing something is an expectation. Anytime you think the world is doing something and you didn't expect them to do it, that's not an expectation that just happens. But when you walk outside and it's cloudy and you're like, “Wait, I just watched the weather report last night and said it was going to be sunny and it's not sunny!!”, that's an expectation. When you're sitting at the table and you've ordered your food and it comes and you take the first bite and it's not warm, you have had an expectation. When you order something online like a shirt and when you get it, it doesn't fit, that's an expectation. And when expectations are unmet, we tend to feel quote unquote ‘some sort of way’.

Somebody walks past you after you've opened the door for them, and they don't say anything, were you expecting them to? If you were expecting them to, why did you expect them to? Oh that's because you were taught…, as soon as you insert yourself into the reasoning of things, then it's ironclad, bonafide, unmet expectation. Newsflash, no one is going to live like you live. No one is going to do the thing that you would do in any given circumstance, because they're not you; and it works in the reverse. Just because you were raised a certain way, and when somebody does something for you, you acknowledge them and you say thank you. That's the way you were raised. Great. But do you always do that? Are you perfect? Do you have a perfect ‘thank you’ record? Maybe you do, but most of us don't.

So you should be aware, you should be aware of when that feeling of, “Hey, wait a minute!! You did not acknowledge me!! You did not say THANK YOU!! You did not look at me. You didn't notice my hair. You didn't see how cool my nails are!! You didn't notice that I've lost 10 pounds, and my chest is bigger and my stomach's flatter…, and you didn't notice that I was wearing different style of clothing or I had a new hat.” Sometimes people don't notice. I mean, I'm guilty of that all the time. I'm the worst at, “Oh, that's a new haircut. Now I've realized that I was supposed to notice. Well then sure, I think it looks great!” But yeah, usually, it looks great, and if it doesn't look great, I'll tell you that too, because I will tell you the truth. But the expectation that you're going to get something back from someone, beware, beware, because the unmet expectation becomes the anger that I was referencing in the Don Henley song: “They let you down. They really hurt your pride.”

Now, that's the before. After? Well, after is a little more challenging. It takes a different level of honesty. After, the expectation is already there, you know, that person, place, or thing that you were expecting to do, whatever, has now passed. So what do you do? Think about it. You keep thinking about it. And you keep rolling it around in your head like a marble in a can. And you keep swirling the can, and the marble keeps rolling around there, and the more it does, the more agitated or ‘some sort of feeling way’ you go!!

Well how do you stop it? Well, as most things go, you have to recognize. You have to recognize how you feel. And then, be honest about why you feel that way. And when I say why YOU feel that way, has nothing to do with any person, place, thing, or situation outside of your skin. It has everything to do with that inside.

Can you do that? Can you recognize? Can you exhibit the wisdom to know the difference between your insides and your outsides? It's hard. Sometimes it's almost impossible. It takes like hours and sometimes even days. You open the door for someone, and they walk through and they don't say anything and you think about it for about an eighth of a second and you go, “Oh, well, thank you!!”, or, “Hey!! Aren't you gonna say something?”, and then when they say “No.”, then you really kind of get sideways, wrapping your brain around the axle. Again, as soon as your emotions start going some sort of way, that, my friend, is an unmet expectation. And when it happens, after the fact and after the fact means you've actually reacted to somebody, something at some place, (person, place, thing, situation), you've reacted, after that has already happened, then, this is where breathing comes in and is very, very useful. This is where you can say, “Whoa!!!”, in your head. “Whoa!!”, and you say it louder, “Whoa, Nelly!!!!”,
can you replay that last 15 seconds? And when you do, can you look at your behavior and not the person, place, thing, or situations? And see where that little twinge of expectation started. It takes a lot of practice, but I can guarantee you that when you do what to do next is easy. As the song says:

“You got to put it all behind you because life goes on.
You keep carrying that anger. It'll eat you up inside, baby.”

And that's true.

Nothing worse than an unmet expectation, except when it grows into a resentment. There are people in your life that you don't talk to, that you try to avoid, you don't answer when they text you, or you put off answering them when they text you. You don't talk to them anymore; you don't hang out with them anymore. You really don't care about them anymore, for some, some reason. I have people like that in my life. It's not healthy for me to engage with them just because, it makes my life worse, and then in turn, I, I spread that love so that their life is worse. I know this about myself, and the best way that I have found the most effective and consistent way of getting rid of a resentment is thinking about the very thing or person that you resent and saying to yourself, “Well, that's just the way that goes.”, “That's just the way they are.”, “That's just the way it is.”, period. And after you say period, you can move on to whatever's next. But if you don't do that and you keep thinking about it, it'll stew.

Expectation is the mother of all resentments. And the best way I have found in my experience to avoid falling into the trap of a resentment is to really try hard not to expect anything. It's very, very difficult, but when you don't expect something, here's the added bonus, when you don't expect anything, everything is a surprise. I like surprises. Don't you?

Can you apply that to your life? Can you take out all the expectations? Just because you zig, not expect to zag, can you do that? That's your challenge. Expectation, the mother of all resentments, because the heart of the matter is just like in the song, “You keep carrying that anger,”, it doesn't matter what it's towards or who it's towards, “It'll eat you up inside.”. And pretty soon you won't be able to function because you'll be so, so throwing energy at that thing that you expected to happen that didn't. And when it comes to people, I was told, “Holding onto a resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”; which we all know just ain't gonna happen.

So practice, practice recognizing feeling ‘some sort of way’. Keep this in mind as well, what's the difference between a reaction and a response?

Time.

Time.

If you take the time, you're more apt to respond rather than react to whatever happens. Regardless of what person, place, thing, or situation it is. Try it. I mean, really. You can practice this stuff all the time. Put your keys in a different place, put your clothes on in a different order. Believe me, little things make big things, and when you practice on little things, it's a lot easier to notice when something happens instead of it being this big, complicated, complex, behemoth of a thing that you spent all this time putting together, blah, blah, blah. The heart of the matter is always inside of you. So remember:

“There are people in your life who've come and gone,
They let you down. You know, they hurt your pride.
You gotta to put it all behind you ‘cause life goes on.
You keep carrying that anger, and it'll eat you up inside.”

That's your WANZOLOGY for today!! Keep trying to get down to the Heart Of The Matter, and check out that song by Don Henley.

Listen to it closely. You may understand what I already know because it's all about the Heart Of The Matter.

I’ll see ya next week….PEACE…