They say when life gives you lemons you should make lemonade. What do you do, then, when life throws you a big fat, shit sandwich? Bite down and swallow? Eat that shit up with a big fat grin. Huh. Maybe that's why they call it a shit-eating grin...
You can't control the world; the things other people say, or do. You can control your own experience of it. In any given scenario, you always have the choice of complete control over your emotional responses—except when you don't, that is. Sorry. Life is complicated. We're all slaves to our emotions, after all. Keeping them in check takes self-control, and awareness—in the moment of peak anger.
It's tricky.
But—in theory—we have mastery of our own perceptions. We can choose how we respond to the lemons, or to the shit; in that sense, we kind of do have complete autonomy of our own experience of the world, if not the world itself.
Of course, the reality of the situation is that in the heat of the moment, in the eye of the storm, it's incredibly difficult to control that little Devil that resides in each of us; the self-righteous justice of dishing out a punch in the face is far more appealing in those moments than taking your medicine, swallowing a bitter pill, and choosing to rise above that bestial surge of rage.
But trust me, you'll be all the better for it. Because in those moments, it's not about winning some fictitious moral high ground, it's about doing yourself some good and investing in your own mental state. Making a choice that does best by you. Let them think they've bested you, let them strut and jaunt and parade around like `Billy Big Balls`.
The fundamental truth of the matter is that you can choose to opt out of the consensus groupthink. Wasting your energy, your mental bandwidth, on arguing with NPCs is not a path that's going to lead anywhere productive for you as an enlightened being.
My advice: in any given situation, think about what is good for you—your wellbeing, your mental state. Don't be a slave to your base emotions.
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