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He was short, stocky, with close-crop hair. His face covered in stubble, congruent with the nonchalant nature of his appearance. He was a few pounds overweight, but certainly approachable enough. After all, it was only a haircut.
Despite a lack of online presence, the shop possessed a distinct local charm. Excited to go out and explore my new city afterward, I darted for his empty chair.
After a brief introduction and assessment of my hair, he excused himself to the back. I began running through the scenarios of how I would spend my afternoon, fading in and out of enticing images I couldn’t wait to live out.
A few more minutes went by, and I snapped back to reality.
“Where the hell is this guy?”
I became visibly frustrated. My mood deterred toward a path I had no intention to venture down a mere few minutes earlier. I wanted to stop it, but I wasn’t letting go. The feeling kept sinking in deeper.
When he finally emerged from a back corridor, I wasn’t shy about my disdain. For the duration of the haircut, I opted for an eroded version of my personality — all because of an unexpected intermission.
As the disconcerting tension began to heighten, the barber stepped in attempting to lighten the load. He shared with me a modest overview of his life, highlighted by his two sons, one of which had been struggling with depression.
The one who he was on the phone with, in the back.
I immediately became overwhelmed with guilt. At this point, I didn’t care about the haircut. I didn’t want him to flip the chair around and show me the mirror. Disgust and self-loathing started knocking on the door.
It was at this point, I recalled a Carl Jung quote:
Everything irritating about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.
Before allowing guilt to consume me and hi-jack my day, I asked myself what this situation could teach me about myself.
A few things became clear:
One was, a prolonged and unexpected wait time triggers me. Highlighted by anger and frustration, I realized this was due to my fear of insignificance. That I would go through life generally unnoticed, and therefore, unloved.
The second was I was tying a looming, wildly-unrelated fear to a situation that had zero acknowledgment of it. Whether he was actually speaking to his son or he just has a differing relationship with time is irrelevant — neither one has anything to do with me.
Third, and perhaps most important, once the guilt stepped in, self-loathing came along with it — a very unhealthy combination. It was at this point, I acknowledged my discomfort with prolonged wait times as a discomfort with myself. My lack of self-love was at the source.
I have trigger events, times where my emotions attempt to steal the present moment. When these buttons get pushed, I lose my ability to remain grounded in reality and associate minor details to personal problems.
Intelligence can be defined by the number of refined distinctions about a given subject. To develop emotional intelligence, a distinction is much of what I need.
I can first notice and recognize the feeling for what it is, disassociating it from what’s happening with the other person I think is causing my issue. If I want to address or question the situation, I can do so in a calm and collected manner. If not, I can be okay letting go as I know it’s got far more to do with me than it does with the other person.
To end the story on a high note, the barber and I got on much better terms. I get my hair cut by a different barber at the shop—not because of the incident, this guy is simply a better barber — but he and I still have a tremendous rapport. He actually owns the shop, and is extremely welcoming to any guest I bring in.
Moral of the story: my emotions are my teachers. I won’t deflect the lessons onto someone else. When I face them head on and put in the work they suggest, I start to create a life I drew up.
One of peace, joy, and love — for myself and for others.
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This post was originally published on ByRSlf.com and is republished here with permission from the author.
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