Reacting to Everything Will Probably Ruin Your Life

—
I remember once having a breakdown over a calculator.

It was high school, of course, and the pressure to succeed felt like an impossible climb. I really hated studying, sitting in classrooms for what felt like years on end and counting down the number of class periods until I could go to the theater department and do something I actually enjoyed.

I’m not sure what I was going through that day, but I pulled out my backpack, my breath laboring as I dug through it. I let out a slightly panicked groan as I came to realize I’d left the damn thing in my locker.

I didn’t cry, but I yelled. I screamed. I lost my damn mind.

I just didn’t realize, I guess, that I’d learned all of it. I learned how to professionally panic.

I mean, that’s what everyone around me did.

♦◊♦

Growing up I was very used to yelling. We yelled to acknowledge one another. We yelled to get our points across. Sometimes there was no good reason to yell, so we just yelled anyway.

But I noticed something after my first year of college.

I came back home to a house in chaos. My Dad had cancer and his anxiety about it was like a song that’s been playing on every radio station so many times a day that you’d rather just turn the sound off in protest. Cancer was injected into every conversation. Conversations, even more so than usual, turned to fights.

We became a family always on edge.

At college, though, I never fought with anyone. Which was a surprise as I’d always been told yelling was just “in my blood” as an Italian. Nowadays I don’t eat much wheat, but back then I could’ve sworn pizza and pasta was built into my DNA.

It makes you think about how important our environment is. How it shapes us.

♦◊♦

Nowadays we have a much calmer house. We all breathe a little easier. Sometimes we fight, but mostly we just talk. And I think it’s because I noticed something.

I noticed how reactive we all were.

I saw the pain and the anger and the hurt in everyone’s eyes. And after listening to what had to have been a million and one self-development podcasts, I know it doesn’t have to be like that.

Reactions, I think, are human. You know, that good ‘ol fight or flight stuff that people far smarter than me will tell you about.

If I could talk to that high school kid who left his calculator at school, I’d tell him it’s really not the end of the damned world. In reality, it’s a small blip in a day that’s just another part of an average week.

I wish someone had told me that.

But I’ll take what I can get.

—

If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join like-minded individuals in The Good Men Project Premium Community.

◊♦◊

Get the best stories from The Good Men Project delivered straight to your inbox, here.

◊♦◊

Sign up for our Writing Prompts email to receive writing inspiration in your inbox twice per week.

♦◊♦

We have pioneered the largest worldwide conversation about what it means to be a good man in the 21st century. Your support of our work is inspiring and invaluable.