Reflective Magnification

Cranky toddlers make me cranky. Perhaps I should say cranky toddler makes me cranky. Since I have only one.

I'm working on this character flaw. And it's a really weird one. I seem to have some kind of problem about overdone behavior. And what I do in the face of it, is engage in overdone behavior. Oh, it feels all justified and right and not overdone when I'm doing it. But after examining it carefully later, I can see it.

Someone deletes a forum thread that I started, and I think they were overreacting. Then I overreact and post a new thread about how much I detested the deletion.

My wife gets a little irritated with a cranky toddler who ought to be going to sleep and isn't, and I get all upset that she's upset. A short time later when she's stopped being upset, and the boy is sound asleep, I'm still out of kilter.

Some coward posts nasty comments to my technical blog (he or she posted anonymously) and I feel I have to use all the wits at my disposal to defend myself and make the person look foolish. Mission probably accomplished (gratuitously insulting people generally makes one look foolish all by itself). But why the heat? Why the overreaction? Have I now been the foolish one by insulting back, though more sophisticatedly? Even if it wasn't gratuitous?

I have some real thinking to do about this. I've seen it a lot lately. I don't think it's because I'm really doing it more, but that I'm seeing it more.

I know I have some real hot buttons around fairness and basic "niceness." And yes I know that's a really blah way to put it, but I haven't really come up with a better way. The fact is, I like to be nice. I like people to be nice. When I feel people aren't being nice, I behave not nicely. The problem is, that isn't nice. What it is is hypocritical.

I've got to stop reflecting what's hurled at me, reflecting and magnifying it.