What to Do When You're About to Lose It
Are you then relieved from feeling it?
“You cry, I’m suffering severe pain! Are you then relieved from feeling it, if you bear it in an unmanly way?” - Seneca
It was 3 a.m. and I was supposed to be done.
Thirty six hours in. My eyes felt like sandpaper. I’d eaten half a cold sandwich somewhere around 6 p.m. and called it dinner. I had my bag on my shoulder, my coat in my hand, and I was maybe forty steps from the door when my phone went off. Then again. Then the ward nurse appeared at the end of the corridor with the expression- the one that means there are more.
Six new admissions. All genuinely sick. All mine.
I put my bag down. I walked back. And somewhere between the nurses’ station and the first patient’s bedside, something in me just turned sour. Something hot, unreasonable, looking for somewhere to go. It was a conglomeration of internal whining, a voice that kept tallying everything up- the hours, the hunger, the unfairness of it, the fact that there was nobody to call, nobody to hand anything to, no exit. By the time I got to the first patient's bedside I was already muttering under my breath, short with the nurse over something trivial.
I stood outside the door for a moment. I took a breath. I noticed what was happening inside me. And I made a decision.
I’m not going to tell you it was easy. But I will tell you it was worth it, and that it works every time, and that the whole thing takes about one second once you know what you’re doing.
See, outbursts don’t work. You probably know this. You’ve known this every single time you’ve done it, including while you were doing it.
And yet. Someone cuts you off, or says the thing, or the wifi goes down at exactly the wrong moment- and suddenly you’re a man having an emotional crisis over a loading screen. You say something devastating to someone who probably didn’t deserve any of it. You slam a door so hard the neighbors now have opinions about your mental health. And then it’s over, and you’re left standing in the aftermath of your own little natural disaster, having solved absolutely nothing, feeling like a slightly damp version of yourself.
The real comedy is what you thought was going to happen. That the door, slammed hard enough, was finally going to teach the universe a lesson. That the aggressive text message was going to turn things around. It didn’t. It never does. The universe is unbothered. Seneca famously consoled his friend Marcia at the loss of her son with these words,
“What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.”
There’s a subtler version of this too, less of a spectacle but equally useless- where you don’t explode outward, you just freeze. You know exactly what needs doing, it’s right there, but you’re so busy marinating in the frustration that you can’t move. Same energy, no door to show for it.
The cure is almost insultingly simple- wait. Just wait. One beat. Ask yourself, “Does this outburst, this whining, make anything better?” “Is this anger flare up helping me make progress in any way?” Buy enough time for your brain to rejoin the conversation. To begin seeing reality as it is again. Because in that space you’ll notice the situation is usually about a third of the size it felt- a minor inconvenience pretending to be a catastrophe.
And listen, some people are just bad for you and you know exactly who they are. You’ve known for years. Keeping your distance from them doesn’t make you a bad friend, you’re just not touching the hot stove again. You’re allowed to move on. To live your life in a fun and peaceful way. Your way.
Every time you hold it together when you really didn’t want to, you get a little harder to rattle. A little less fun to provoke. The people who were counting on you to crack have to find someone else to bother. And you walk away feeling something better than righteous- you feel like yourself, which after a good outburst, is not always guaranteed. Better yet, you give yourself the energy and time to handle what’s in front of you with care and precision.
Most things that try to destabilize you aren’t worth the performance. They may seem like catastrophes, but thanks to hindsight, they barely are. Take it easy.
Don’t give them the show. Don’t make it harder for yourself than it needs to be. Handle your business. Handle it well. Go home.
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P.P.S: Most people loved the series on How to Deepen Your Friendships, Part I, Part II & Part III. Also check out the practical entries on How To Deal With Toxic People, How to Process & Overcome Grief & How to Prevent and Overcome Burnout. Happy reading!
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Had a really major setback today & it's bogged me down all morning. Seeing this popping up in my mail was truly heaven sent. Thank you
Yes! The truth is, an outburst, far from providing relief, causes you another problem. There may be a path to better, but that ain’t it.