Just Irritability Can Wreck Your Life

Yes, Raging Violent Anger is Very Bad, but it does have this one particular advantage – that the People who become so Angry that they are Raging and Violent will definitely KNOW that they have a Problem, and will either seek help on their own or ‘help’ will be imposed upon them by the Courts, their Families, or their Employers. But people who are just Irritable aren’t often considered a Dangerous Threat, and are generally believed to be Behaving within Acceptable Boundaries. Being cynical, snide and grumpy isn’t a crime.

Yet Human Beings are Social Animals. And being Irritable works against Being Sociable. If there is any One Thing that you should remember from reading this Post it is that ‘People will want to avoid you if you are characteristically Irritable’. Wives avoid Irritable Husbands. Children avoid Irritable Parents. Employees will avoid Irritable Bosses, leaving serious problems unreported. Bosses will fire or marginalize Irritable Employees. Coworkers will work around Irritable Coworkers. Socially, it will be nearly impossible for Irritable People to make quality friends and they will become ‘loners’ by a kind of Social Default.

But many Irritable People delude themselves into thinking that they have ‘plenty of friends’. What this means is that at their Job and in their Commercial Dealings there are people who are bound by Duty or Interest to tolerate the Irritable Person. For example, many irritable people think they have a lot of ‘friends’ at Work. Well, the Test for this kind of assumption, is to explore whether any of these ‘friendships’ exist outside of ‘Work’. In most cases an Irritable Person will not be getting any dinner invitations from his Coworkers, none of them will call him or her up with ‘extra’ Tickets to the ‘Game’, No Weddings, No Barbecues, No “Why Don’t You Join Our Bowling League”… perhaps maybe some fellow worker will be desperate enough to call up the Irritable Person if he or she is Moving and the ‘grouch’ owns a pickup truck. Anyway, if this is how an Irritable Person can describe his Social life, then he or she has no ‘friends’. Oh, wait, forgive me, but of course we all know of Situations where a number of Irritable People will find themselves ‘isolated together’—sort of like a ‘clique’ for people who can’t get into any other clique – a kind of last resort ‘Loser’s Club’. But if all of your friends are people who are generally hated by everyone else, well, it is hardly much of a Career or Social Asset.

Then we have Irritable People objecting that they can’t be ‘All That Bad’ or somebody would have complained. Well, no. You see, ‘complaining’ is one of those Things that an Irritable Person would do. Normal People, who prioritize ‘not making scenes’ or ‘provoking possible enemies’ simply exercise discretion and maintain their distance. They are courteous, polite and may even smile, but they will not spend a second longer with an Irritable Person than they possibly have to.

We should look at some of the Things that Make an Irritable Person Irritable. I would assume that most people are Irritable because Irritable Behavior was consistently ‘modeled’ to them by their Parents – that It has become a Lifelong Bad Habit, and they Keep Doing It because they’ve never done anything else and can hardly imagine any alternative… they believe they are ‘just being themselves’ and that makes it somehow some kind of a Virtue. But in a strange backwards way Irritability does have a Utility. You see, in a Way Irritability represents a kind of Dramatic Extra-Verbal Communication. For instance, a Parent who has been busy and hardworking all day long will show Irritability as a way of expressing that he or she is fatigued and could use a break (when you would think it would be easier just to ‘Say So’). Irritability is also used to express ‘impatience’, or exasperation. But often Irritability has no useful Communicative function at all, but is merely Dramatic or Narcissistic. For example, say at Work an important Deadline is being missed because suddenly the Computer Network crashes. Certainly Everybody is already quite Aware of the problem, so the Grumbling, Voguing and Handwringing of the Irritable Person is simply gratuitous and annoying. And Yet the Irritable Person probably thinks that it is important to Show everybody that he or she Very Disappointed – ostensively More Disappointed than anyone else! Well, that would make it a kind of Self Inflated and very Presumptuous Form of Grandstanding. So we can begin to better understand why Nice People don’t like Irritable People.

Often Irritable People are actually Very Qualified and Skilled at their Jobs. They think therefore that they are somehow Entitled to be Irritable, that is, that in exchange for all their Positive Work Contributions, they should get back in return some basic Tolerance or even Gratitude. And, yes, it often works out that way, but only if an Irritable Person is Critically Important and can’t be replaced. But more often than not, while the Irritable Person really is doing ‘good quality work’, in the Greater Scheme of Things it is probably the Case that mediocre and average work would have suited the Job just fine, and so the Irritability of the Irritable Person simply seems to come at too high a price. Also, a lot depends on the Work Culture. In Europe the Department Managers have usually worked their way up from the ‘Floor’, that is a Production Manager today was probably a Junior Engineer 30 years before, and so such a Manager would know from firsthand experience the Value of each Worker’s Contributions to the Collective Effort. But in the English Speaking Cultures, most of the Department Managers specialize as ‘Managers’ and move around a lot from Slot to Slot, and so they may not have the foggiest idea what it is their ‘People’ are actually doing down on the ‘Floor’. So such a Boss is in no position to evaluate anybody’s Work Quality one way or another, except perhaps in regards to the simple basic statistical data points such as Rate of Absenteism. So for an Irritable Person to gamble on being seen as Mission Critical and Non-expendable in such a Career Environment, well, that is borderline Delusional.

So now we should ask what an Irritable Person can do if he or she realizes that their Irritability is indeed a Problem? Well, Irritability is so much like Anger that most Anger Management Self Help Books would work just fine. They can skip the chapters on Rage, since Rage is mostly driven by Adrenaline. Irritable People simply need to focus on weeding out the Bad Irritable Habits in Thought and Behavior and replacing them with New Positive Habits, such as, Smile A Lot, never Complain, always be Polite, be Easy Going even while under Stress and don’t make Your Problems other People’s Problems, be Patient with Delays and Understand that Your Priorities are not Everyone Else’s Priorities, always Imagine there Might Be a Good Reason or even an Explanation for the Things that are Happening that Annoy or Frustrate you, work to solve problems but take short breaks whenever you hit a ‘wall’ because often afterward you will come back to the problem with a new and better approach or at least with fresh attention. … And the List Goes On…You get the idea. Part of the Process of learning to Not Be Irritable is in contriving your Own Set of New and Better Behavioral and Thought Habits. Erase the Old Slate and draw in a New You.

But allow me to conclude by saying that reducing your Apparent Irritability may not all be ‘Sun Shine and Roses’ – you know what they say, “To Get Along you have to Go Along” and you may not always particularly like the direction things are going; for instance, At Your Job you might have to sink to the lowest Ethical Common Denominator maintained by your Bosses and Coworkers, and Socially that you will have to abide by the Commonly Held Moral Standards of the People you wish to Socialize with, even when they may be significantly lower than your own Personal Standards. The Truth is that You cannot be the Only Person “Who Doesn’t Kiss the Toad”, and that setting yourself Above the Group and being disdainful of its Behavior and Practices will only speed up the onset of your Professional or Social Ruin. So you may have to consider that sometimes in order to Not be Irritable and to also be able to Live With Yourself, if your Dignity and Self Respect are priorities for you, that you must Reject the Crowd before it has a chance to reject you. Your Ethical Scruples may prevent you from ever being a Huge Worldly Success, and the Society you find that suites you may not be very numerous, but a few good Friends are usually Enough. With Friends, unless you are out to win a Popularity Contest, Quality counts more than Quantity.