Huh.
Four times in the last 24 hours someone has said something directly or indirectly with the intention of directly or indirectly taking a swipe at me. Rather than losing my temper or uselessly arguing or any other just as useless emotion, I've been able to step back and say either, "Okay, this person is just pissy and needs someone to yell at," or "This person is being childish and refusing to see any point of view but their own misguided one," and I've been able to realize before I open my mouth that absolutely nothing I can say or do is going to make that person feel better or think differently. It's really their problems, not mine. If people want to be angry or upset, fine, they can be angry, it has nothing to do with me until they sit down and want to talk with me about it in an adult manner. Otherwise it's just a person being melodramatic and refusing to deal with a situation in a healthy way. It's amazing how people -myself definitely included- can be presented with an issue that can be easily fixed, but instead of fixing it or stepping back to look at the issue from every angle, get all worked up and twisted and throw their negativity at it again and again until it's something ugly and warped and unsalvagable. I would really like to stop doing that myself, and I would very much like to just step away from the spitters when they're busy doing it - especially when they're trying to drag me into their big badness too. Be bitter, be pissy, be hostile and deliberately misunderstand, if you need to. But I'm not playing. I think my energy is better used when it's directed toward people who want me there.