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Comment by leke | Hacker News Reader

My god, you're like the chillest person. I wish I could let go of things as easily as you.

The best part is you can. Not saying it’s easy (and certainly far easier for some people than others), but how you react to events is one of the very few things that’s actually under your control.

Some of the most useful self-work I’ve done, for sure.

Something really useful that I learned was just to delay my responses to surprises. I did this to stop getting angry at things that I misunderstood, by giving myself more time to think about what was being said, but I found it is useful for all sorts of things.

Meditation helps with this. Practicing to notice feelings, accept them and giving them space lets you stay calm and do the same outside of meditation.

Could you expand a bit on what the self-work entailed?

All sorts of things. Therapy. Psilocibin. A girlfriend (now wife) with a wildly different worldview than my own. Retreats. Meditation. ‘Conscious community”. Workshops. Yoga.

Stoicism in a nutshell

I've been trying to get less angry, and I found that reading Meditations helps me a lot. It's all about reframing.

> “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

I mean it happened and getting upset over it at that point won't bring it back or improve the situation, will it? It's about being able to relativise things.

Of course, everyone's different like that, I'm the stoic (or emotionally repressed and stunted) one in the house.

I always thought I'd blow a gasket if my car was ever broken into. What a violation of personal space! And all my stuff!

Then it happened. They got my TomTom and my digital camera, plus _the entire backseat and hatchback full of old computers and printers that I was taking to e-waste the next day_.

The moment I pictured the thieves walking into a pawnshop with that stuff, and getting laughed right back out, I couldn't be mad anymore. I was still annoyed that I had to go get the window fixed and buy a new TomTom on eBay for $35, but the actual results of the theft just sent me into giggles every time. Still do.

It's unclear how chill they were at the time. You seemed to read something as very chill. It's a lot easier to be chill once the financial impact is blunted by insurance, restitution and tools. And it also helps that time has passed, so now it's a funny story.

OP’s wife praises them for their attitude. That’s a very strong indicator.

OP's wife praised them for taking care of the issue with a level head. That's very different from being chill. Not anti-chill, but a different dimension. In fact, it's probably a better trait!

Are you really being pedantic with slang?

It's possible you are using the word "chill" in a way that is unrecognizable to me. And, from context, how other people responding to you interpreted your usage. I don't think so, but then again I may have have no idea what you meant.

Anyway, if you want to explain what you meant, great.

You cannot stop being pedantic, can you? Chill is slang and has no set meaning.

You have disagreed with absolutely everyone for no reason!

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