Krapsakas

As you’ve probably gathered from reading the Krapsakas blog posts, I don’t tolerate injustice or utter stupidity.
It really makes me flame, irritates me, and I become a big roaring lion.
Which is great on the one hand, because we need people in the world who are so passionate about making things better. It helps ignite innovation.

The little thing is, when this big roaring lion decides to speak out or stand up for everything that is unfair in her eyes, then this lion burns her own life force energy with a big bright flame (burns out).

And that’s exactly what I’ve done repeatedly throughout my life. Stepped into the bucket, so to speak, and shook it hard.
Without realizing that not all battles are my battles.

I’ve probably been trying to fix this issue my entire life.
Also so that I don’t burn out with too bright a flame.
But all healing comes in layers. Like peeling an onion. You remove one layer, you can enjoy it for a while, until it’s time to remove a new layer again.

I am currently removing another layer of this on the “Onion of Injustice”.

Oh, dang! How I hate spiritual growth when you are at a point where nothing works.
You try, you don’t try, you cry, you don’t cry, you laugh, you don’t laugh, you ask for help or you don’t ask for help.
Absolutely everything seems to be stagnant. Although at the same time, everything in energy is changing.

It was in one of these moments of stagnant water and trying to be calm about it all that I suddenly had an insight into how I could help myself in the future with such issues.

I can tell myself (if possible) out loud: “This behavior is not okay. This is not how it should be. But it is not my job to solve it!”

And if I can’t say it out loud, I can say it in my mind.

How or why would a sentence like this help?

Our brain, our subconscious, doesn’t differentiate between right and wrong.

Let me give you an example: you surf social media and see some actions that are clearly wrong. But you don’t tell yourself that. 

This may make you feel uncomfortable, but since the comments also praise the action and/or there are many similar posts that are disturbing the action, your brain eventually registers that “Aha! This thing is okay!”. 

Even when your body feels that it doesn’t suit you.

In essence, it’s the same as why we don’t react anymore to the very ugly news of the war or to the fact that many women openly work as sex workers on the Internet and earn money from it.
If something is covered massively or repeatedly and society also treats it like talking about the weather, i.e. neutrally, then our brains eventually accept it as normal.

For example, think about how you reacted when the US announced that surprise-surprise UFOs do exist.
More than most people were of the “Talk about something new” attitude, because we’ve been hearing about UFOs our whole lives.

However, if you tell yourself (your brain) that this action is wrong BUT you don’t have to solve it, then you remove yourself from this state of:
a) you don’t want to agree or go along with it, but society is pushing you along so you should
b) you don’t create anxiety for yourself that you want to help but can’t or don’t know how.

It’s important to note that I don’t mean that you shouldn’t get involved at all if you can help make things better. Just make a conscious choice about what your battle is and do you have the resources to deal with it?

Here are some examples of what I mean by not all things are worth getting heated about

I went through a lecture at the driving school’s e-school, where they talked about an accident that happened 20+ years ago. The sober driver, who was driving children and was hit by a driver with a very high blood alcohol content, who swerved into the direction of the car carrying the children. The children and the driver carrying the children survived, but the drunk driver died.

The driver carrying the children was at fault because his actions at that moment were wrong.

I apologize here that I don’t remember exactly what those actions were at the moment.
If I remember correctly, there was some kind of braking issue.
I guess it was that he completely blocked the brakes, but since it was a very old car and there was no ABS system, the tires became unswiveling when the brakes were pushed into the block.

In short, the driver carrying the children received a criminal penalty.
It made me so angry.

Imagine that you are driving calmly from point A to point B in the afternoon.
A driver with a high blood alcohol content, who should be at home sleeping off the alcohol, not behind the wheel, is driving towards you.
Suddenly, he swerves into your lane. You react as best you can at the moment.
As a result, there is a serious traffic accident and, ultimately, you get a criminal conviction and go to prison.
Bravo, drunk driver! You just completely screwed up the life of one person (and probably a family too)!
Oooooh, I was burning. With a bright flame.
It seemed and still seems so unfair to me.

The reality is, however, that this is an old case. 20+ years old. This driver has served his sentence and is free.
I can do nothing to change this situation. In addition, the laws have changed many times during this time. And perhaps today the punishment in such a situation is completely different.

The only thing I can tell myself is that “This case is very unfair and I do not agree with it. But it is not my job to solve it” and take with me the knowledge that if I ever have a situation in my life where someone decides to swerve into my lane and hit me, I will not slam on the brakes and, in a last ditch effort, drive off the right side of the road.

Ptüi-ptüi-ptüi (Estonian saying to express spitting over your shoulder 3 times to avoid superstition). I hope that such a situation never happens to me.

Example two

There are several smokers in opposite my building, and there is one woman who has been making me so pissed off lately!

I have seen her smoking for months, but what I hadn’t noticed until last week was that when she has stopped smoking, she always throws her cigarette butts into the grass.
There are birds pecking at worms in the grass, dogs with their owners and children playing.

And this woman throws at least 5 butts there a day, because she is a heavy smoker.

Oh, how I flamed when I discovered this.
How fucking hard is it for you to take a can and make a cigarette butts cup out of it?
Why do you have to harm nature?

I got the following from www.kops.ee:
“The smoke cones are made of cellulose acetate, a plastic material that does not decompose in nature. The filter breaks down into microparticles within 15 years, but does not rot. These particles are eaten by animals, birds, and even us! A single cigarette pollutes approximately 1,000 liters of drinking water”. 

Is there anything I can actually do to fix this situation so that she doesn’t throw those cigarette butts on the lawn?

Well, I could theoretically shout it to her from the window, but then I would be a complete psycho 😄, because our houses are close enough to see what the residents of each house are doing, but at the same time we are far enough away that if you want to talk to them, you would have to scream at the top of your lungs.

Another option would be to go talk to her when she is outside smoking. 

Which would mean that I would have to watch from the window when she goes to smoke and then sprint for my dear life out of my building to her building. But that distance is so long that she will have time to go back to her building before I can reach her.

The third option would be to put a paper notice on the front door of their building that says “Please do not throw cigarette butts into nature (i.e. on the lawn). Take them to the trash can”.

However, the question arises: do I want to go so far with this matter as to teach another adult?

But when do we start helping others too much and correcting them too much?

We are all different as people. But what I see my own behavior and many other people’s behavior too. A recurring pattern has caught my eye – when we ourselves have some concern or concerns that we don’t want to deal with. 

For example, take about topic Z, analyze it, solve it.
But what a lot of people do- they take other persons life or problem and try to solve that instead.
And often we don’t even notice right away that we are using another problem to avoid our own problem. Our own concern doesn’t disappear or become smaller. You just don’t pay attention to them for a while. 

What else did I notice. A little off topic, but it’s worth reminding again and again, because this is also one of the root causes of our irritable behavior – we don’t take the time to disconnect from screens and information.

I consciously took 4 days to calm down here in the meantime. No rushing. Rest as much as possible. Less unnecessary screen time.

Which was nice on the one hand. I got to see topics that I had avoided looking at and it was somehow easier to be. There wasn’t a lot of constant information noise.

But as the day went on, the more I had withdrawal symptoms.
I subconsciously started looking at content with more negative content. Because without social media, it was suddenly too calm for my brain.
When I didn’t consume the amount of (social) media that I usually did, my brain started to have withdrawal symptoms(?).

The dialogue in my head looked something like this:
“I’m so bored. I’m going to look at Instagram for a while.”
“Agnes, no! You don’t need that. You’re calm right now (nervous system is calm). Go do something else. You don’t have to look at the screen.”
“But I want to! Just for a moment. What could happen?”.

And there were finally enough of these “just for a moment” moments that I had to admit to myself that I had indeed developed a greater addiction to media consumption again. And this type of addiction happens so quickly!

If I were to ask you right now if you have a screen addiction?
You would probably say, “I have everything under control. It’s not that bad.”
Okay. But could you spend the next 4 days almost completely without screen consumption?
I suggest you say that you can try and it can be done.
It can be done! I completely agree.

But it actually shows us beautifully how much we actually look at the screen.
“I only answer one email”.
“I need to pass on information to my child’s teacher”.
“I’ll check my email again once, I’m waiting for a response”.
“A friend just texted me, I can’t put her on hold”.
“Hey, Matt is just video calling. I’ll pick up, maybe it’s something important”.
“I need to set a timer for cooking”.

Do I continue the countdown?

All the “but it’s only a moment” are ultimately minutes that turn into hours.
I’m getting off topic now, but it’s important to remind this again and again.

In short, I will summarize the topic as follows

Know which issues are worth “fighting” for and bringing justice to.
Even if you really, really want to help everyone and everything, unfortunately, this is not possible.
Try to realize as soon as you see something that you would like to change but cannot, that it is not your fight.
Be aware and let the topic go.
And observe/feel whether you have the resources to resolve this issue at all?

Maybe this issue is really irritating you, you even have the opportunity to change this issue, but your hands are already so full of things that you are dealing with that you simply do not have the resources to resolve another issue. 

For example, work problems are a good example of this topic. 
Are all work problems yours to resolve or can you say “no” and delegate them?

What are the topics for you where you intervene and fight to make things better?
And what are the things that you need to realize that you can’t change more than by making better and more conscious choices yourself?
Let me know in the comments ☺️.

With love,
Krapsakas Agnes