Attempting to give advice to JD, Howard recently explained a situation where he was awaken in the middle of the night by a wrong number calling. The old Howard, he said, would have been unable to go back to sleep and been furious at his situation. The new Howard, however, realizes that the human experience is filled with situations where you are faced with these "unfortunate" situations, and it's absurd to be angered by them. In fact, getting upset by them is an indication that the person has a God complex and thinks that bad things shouldn't happen to them.

This really hit home for me. Lots of little things bother me....a lot. The subtitle of this blog is about having a "furious anger and murderous rage"! And really, there's only been about two or three really bad things that have happened in my life. Mostly, it's the inconsequential stuff that bothers me.

And maybe it is the result of a God complex. That I sit around and think "life would be fine as long as nothing bad every happened to me...ever.

A couple of weeks ago, a woman bumped into me as I was walking, and as I tried to regain my balance, the wire to my headphones got caught in the door. Ultimately, my headphones broke, and while this was inconvenient (they were pretty good headphones and replacing them was going to take an effort), my rage was disproportionate to my actual inconvenience. It felt like the end of the world, just like it does if/when I spill something on a shirt I like.

I'm not one for New Year Resolutions normally (though, I am rushing through this post so I can submit it before midnight, to keep with my ONE NYR this year), but being able to better tolerate these little bumps in the road is definitely up there for 2010. So, my headphones are broken. Big deal. Buy a new pair, and move on.

Thanks Howard!