Personal Dogma

He who angers you controls you. – A wise person.

I’ve been seriously debating the value of some people in my life. It isn’t something that I do all the time, and generally it only becomes a consideration when someone becomes a detriment to how I live my life.

I’ve often avoided people who are overtly dogmatic. Usually this takes the form of being dogmatic about one’s religion or political party. But you can be dogmatic about many things, how you choose to interpret what others say, what foods you’re willing to try, how you’re willing to play a game, and what information and conditions you allow to influence your decisions.

I’m not by any means free of my own dogmas. I am far from it. But I often ask myself the question, “Was I wrong?” I’ll play internal devil’s advocate and do my best to prove to myself that I was wrong. I’ll often ask friends to help me prove that I was wrong. I don’t always do a full blown mea culpa, but I’ll adjust for future situations.

I expect the same from those around me.

So I’m stuck with a couple of wrongs that I’ll admit I’m guilty of:

1. I can be too quick to react. I know this about myself, and I try to be patient. But I have my faults, and cannot always be perfect.
2. I’ll stop playing a game that I’m not having fun playing. This is a simple matter of investment cost and return. Once a game isn’t fun anymore its work.

Okay so I initially wanted to keep this really general. But I can’t examine the issue that have been frustrating me over the past several days without getting to the level of specificity that I’ve gone into.

Relating to that I asked a friend who knows the person who is frustrating me how he deals with him. He said that the person who is frustrating me will “…use you and piss you off, but he expects you to use him in return.” Unfortunately I think that is reasonably accurate.

I’m not sure that attitude is something I want around me anymore.