[jmcdiesel]

Because being annoyed doesn't affect them, only you.

Choosing to experience negative emotion because someone does something is self-harm.

When you are entitled to something, you expect it, and you can't expect something and be truly appreciative of it at the same time. When you don't expect good though, the bad doesn't upset you, and the good, you actually genuinely appreciate.

[yesenadam]

"Choosing to experience negative emotion because someone does something is self-harm."

Hi :-) Fascinating comment. Do you really live that, or just it's something you read/heard and aspire to?

Trying to unpack that a little: Calling experiencing negative emotion (i.e. feeling bad) "choosing to experience negative emotion" seems psychobabble. Do you choose all your feelings? I doubt it. So, you will never feel bad because of anything anyone does, because why would you, and that would be self-harm. All that just strikes me as jargon out of a bad self-help book. It doesn't sound human, but like a robot, or maybe a guru. (e.g. Nisargadatta: 'In my world, nothing ever goes wrong.') I guess that's why gurus/monks/priests aren't supposed to have wives, girlfriends, careers, possessions etc. Because ordinary humans do get upset about stuff. And feel good about stuff. The way you call people "someone" and reduce most of life to "someone doing something" I find absolutely chilling.

That last bit about expectation sounds likes the ridiculous pessimism I thought made sense as a child. If you expect things to turn out for the worst, you will never be disappointed. That was before I realized that in life your attitude makes a huge difference to how things turn out. In the real/everyday world of someones doing somethings anyway.

[jmcdiesel]

You dont chose your emotions, you chose which emotions to react to.

There is an entire philosophy built around that concept, buddhism.

[joonhocho]

I didn't expect anything, but your comments still let me down, and I find you annoying.

[resu_nimda]

What he's talking about is putting yourself in a mindset of very low expectations to maximize your own happiness.

For example, if your baseline "expectation" of people is that they will be rude and shitty, then you won't become annoyed when someone is rude and shitty to you. And when someone is nice to you, they have exceeded your expectations and it makes you happy.

So what you perhaps "expected" is that people generally would not be rude, which led to your disappointment when you encountered a rude person, which ultimately just generated annoyance/unhappiness for yourself (i.e. their rudeness is static regardless of how it made you feel).

The point is not really to go around bleakly expecting everything to be shit all the time, but just in general, the lower your expectations are, the less power you give people to disappoint and upset you, and the more you appreciate people for exceeding your expectations. It's not really about whether it's "right" or "wrong" to be annoyed at them but just a mindset shift for your own contentment.

[jmcdiesel]

Its not about low expectations. Its about no expectations.

Buddhism, Daoism, etc... its the same idea. Don't have expectations, good or bad, simply be in the moment.

[edited for spelling]