ep 119 Anger Expectation Giving Up
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Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of Coffee Corner. Today is your episode 119 and guess what? I remember the exact number of this episode. So let's get started.

Today, I do want to talk about a few things just because when I listened to my previous episode, I figured out or I realized I didn't cover what I really wanted to say. So first, the thing I want to talk about is anger. I'm sure in our own life there or in your life, there are so many difficult people and you realize anger.

All you want is to communicate with normal people. As long as they behave normal, then life will be very peaceful. But the truth is, there are not many normal people. So let's talk about anger first. And also I want to talk about expectation and also giving up. Things that I just thought about it recently and I feel like there's an urge to make a video about it. So anger. I don't know how many of you are angry people. I sometimes do.

Yes, and especially when things don't go my way...

I definitely feel very angry, mad, or to be more specific, frustrated. So I just posted something about my article. I finally can share this news with everybody and I was so happy. It took me very long time to publish that article. And part of that is because of me, part of that because other people that I can't control and other reasons I can't control. I posted and everybody said, congratulations. I was so happy. I was so overwhelmed that you guys congratulated me and I felt like,

I'm that kind of friend. I can't probably say I'm your friend. I didn't disappoint you. I didn't let you down. And then for the first time, I wanted to say that I didn't let you down, but I also didn't let myself down too.

But then there are a couple of comments. They are very nice. They were just saying that, wow, it took so long to get an article published. They didn't mean that, but you can interpret it in a very different way. So a couple of comments in two different platforms saying that, oh, it took you two years to publish an article. My first reaction, shame, anger, anger.

and disappointment. So shame is because, yeah, I didn't realize it took me so long to publish an article. Now I'm celebrating it. Why are you celebrating? Two years. It's not short. And I only published one article.

So second about anger, when I saw the comment, my first reaction is also a hidden anger there. I almost snapped at those two comments, but then realized I need to calm down, just take a step back and think about the situation. The reason of my anger is, of course, a shame because I felt like people spotted my weakness that I didn't publish fast enough. And it took me so long to get one article out and you're celebrating what?

That's my anger. And then disappointment is because, of course, I was so happy I did something finally really well and then realized, oh, if you think about the time and effort and the result, the cost is very high.

And is it worth it to celebrate? That was my first reaction. That's how complicated my emotions are at that moment. And my first reaction to snap at them. And I typed out all the words. I was like, so what? I published or something like that. But then realized...

They didn't mean that. It is really easy to misinterpret other people's messages, especially online, just because you can't see their reactions, you can't hear their tones, their facial expressions. So...

I was thinking, don't assume that was out of bad motive. Think about maybe they are just celebrating as you are and they're saying that you did such a great work and it takes so long and it's such a great effort.

So I said, I explained, and normally I wouldn't, I explained why it took a very long time just because in 2022 in July, I submitted my article. I was working, but also I was pregnant by then. And then

November, December was my due date. So after that, I was supposed to give everything in and then working on that. But I had postpartum depression for a very long time. And then finally I got over that and my mom came to help me and I got time to work on the article and got a little bit...

sleep and my brain finally could function, then that's when I get started to move forward. But then my reviewers, they took turns to get sick. Not on purpose, but they were sick for many reasons. Of course, they couldn't tell me how sick or what kind of illness they had, but they were sick for a very long time and then the whole process has paused.

for that moment and that's why it took very long time to finish everything. So for me, everything was bad luck. If I were myself in let's say 10 years or even 5 years ago, I would assume everything was bad luck and all bad things happened to me because I'm a bad luck person.

But now I don't really think about it. I think some things are meant to be taking so long to get the results so you can cherish that. And also, to be quite honest, I'm going to be that kind of person that nobody cares about the process. You have it. You're the only person who needs to work on the process to get it done, to get it out. So anyway, that was long story short. Coming back is when I realized during the process, I was reminded to

work hard. I was reminded to get it done. But then I got angry because I knew I was supposed to get things done, but I didn't want to. Because when I think about it, if you think about it, if this happens to you is if I start a work and I can't get it done, then it's my fault. If I didn't start the work and I didn't get it done. And if something goes wrong, it is not my fault because I didn't get it done. Right. I didn't do it. So that was my

philosophy towards the work back then but also when people point at how or what you need to do at that moment you feel offended because you know what they're talking about is the truth and you should follow you should listen to them but you don't want to because if you follow what they said

And then you're going to be the bad person. But nobody wants to be the bad person. So you better jump ahead and point your finger at them first, saying that mind your own business. I know what I'm doing. But actually, you don't know what you're doing. So that's how I feel about anger. And most of the time, I'm really learning now and trying to be more aware of how my emotions grow and disappear faster.

Sometimes when I get a little bit irritated, that's when people remind me what I'm supposed to do, but I didn't do it. And I think my anger comes from being ashamed of what I didn't do or what I didn't do right. And of course, the first reaction of mine will be shouting back, because mind your own business, right?

Think about teenagers. I think of when I was a teenager or when I was younger, when my parents told me what to do, I, of course, first reaction is to be mad at them and then thinking why you always remind me what to do. But now think back, I would say that's probably because I am aware of my mistake and I'm aware of my fault too.

But I don't want to make that because people care about how they look in front of other people. Doesn't matter what kind of relationship you have. You always want to look perfect.

But if people tell you what to do, then you don't look perfect. You are not a perfect person. You make mistakes and you are ashamed of that because that's a sign of you being incapable. So that's how I feel about that. And that's the anger. But coming back to difficult people, right? That's the first thing I was talking about, difficult people. Why do I say that it's important to be aware of anger when you deal with the difficult people? Because you're not thinking about yourself, you're thinking about yourself.

the other part. So let's say, especially if you are dealing with the NPD and you can't set boundaries because boundaries are just like what I said about myself. If you tell them what they're supposed to do, they feel offended. And the best defense is offense. To protect themselves, they're going to yell at you. They're going to tell you to leave them alone or they think you are trying to hurt them and you are disrespectful or even so you are racist.

So that's how people with NPD traits or they have NPD would think about us. For example, if your friend, your colleague, or even your parent or your kid, they have this trait as an NPD trait.

and then you tell them to do homework, to teach the class properly, or you tell them that you've received some complaints about their work, their job, and their first reaction is everybody's trying to hurt them. If I know her personality, if I know her reaction, I probably wouldn't do anything. Because first of all, I don't want to be that kind of cold-hearted bitch or selfish person, but if I know people who have that trait,

I wouldn't do anything about their work because you know they're not going to learn anything and they don't want to hear your advice or something because your advice at that moment is useless. You do not tell me what I'm supposed to do because I know what I'm supposed to do. But deep down, they know their flaw and they know their mistakes. They don't want to admit that because they have so low self-esteem and they don't have confidence in themselves. So to be confident, they be loud, they be confident.

noisy. So then they pretend and then you think they are very strong, they're scary and then you don't come charge at them.

That's how I figure out how things work. And I have a few students who are like that too. If they make mistakes in my class and I'm trying to be nice and then I use my way to say good work, I will praise them first and then tell them where the mistakes is and what could that lead to. Confusion, funny things or some of jokes. Trying to make the situation a little bit smoother, a little bit joyful, funnier.

But again, it doesn't matter what methods you are using. They are going to be like that. They will be thinking that you are targeting them and they will think you don't like them because their nationality, because their personality, because their skin color, whatever. So they will figure out a long list of the reasons that why you do this to them.

Other than thinking about themselves that they actually made that mistake and I'm just trying to help. To make my life easier, I gave up pointing at mistakes to those people. I think if your first reaction is not to learn but react.

then I cannot help you. And that helped me stabilize my own emotion too so I don't struggle with the difficult people. So if same thing or similar things happen to you in your life, think about why they behave like that. Did you point it or did you poke their soft spot?

And then you make them feel vulnerable, feel exposed, feel insecure. That's probably why they are mad at you. Not because you did something wrong to them. I don't want you to blame yourself. I don't want to blame myself as well. But when things happen like that, you can think about you must have told Jesus.

truth that they don't want to admit and then be proud of yourself, right? So that's how I deal with the difficult people right now. And again, emotions and feelings are very normal. You can't say, well, now I figure out this pattern. I figure out this way. I'm going to have a better or more stable emotions and feelings. It's not going to happen. You're going to feel mad and you're going to feel frustrated all the time, but the

at least after that or during the situation, during the hated situation, you wouldn't be too reactive. So that's my advice about that. And then expectations. That's another thing that related to anger.

And then the next one I want to talk about giving up is you have to have reasonable expectations for yourself. So for example, using my article, I had a, when I started that, I had a very high expectation on that thing. I felt like I was so capable. I was able to generate multiple articles just from that one research, which is what my professor said as well. So we're going to get three articles out of the research paper and we're going to be

doing really great without realizing that my time, my energy and the life changes have done a lot to me that I just could not do it. I have very limited energy, which brought me

back to thinking about people that some people are successful because if you look at those videos or talks or anything, those success people have like unlimited energy that we don't have. I constantly feel tired. I just can't really get things going. And how am I going to be successful? Of course not. I'm a lizard. And I put things off and I have ideas. I put them aside. I have deadlines. I will leave it till last minute. And that's me.

And will never be successful. That's probably why my channel doesn't grow that well. Anyway. And this is what I've learned. You sometimes. Funny enough. You don't have to be confident to think of yourself highly. You can. People think of themselves highly.

highly for many reasons. It could be you know you're pretty, you know you're capable, or you have something you think you can do really well but other people can't. That's how you think yourself highly. But sometimes it can be unrealistic. You think you have ability at the rate of 10, but then you actually maybe have 5. But you don't know that because people are not going to tell you you only have

five out of ten of your ability and then you think you can do it but you can't do it and you fail and you start to feel frustrated and people tell you maybe you should switch to a different way that would suit you or that would be a better way for you to do things and you feel mad because what they said is true. Those sort of things I'm trying so hard to work on just because myself has this problem

I hope it can help, but I don't know. So I'm thinking about myself trying to get a lot of articles done is unrealistic. I didn't get that done. And I start to doubt myself that I'm not a capable person. Maybe I'm not a researcher material and maybe I should not do that. And then I have very low confidence in

And then I start to get mad at me. And then people tell me that, oh, you made a mistake in your writing or your writing sucks or your English sucks. And then I got so mad and I would say, how dare you say that? My English is awesome.

not being mad at you just because you poke the bubble that I was in and now I start to realize maybe I'm not that good and then bad things just happened everything collapses and then I just collapse so that's how my emotion and myself work that another example would be I have very low expectation so today I just want to get this done if I can finish writing paragraph one I will be good

because you have a low expectation and you have low pressure and then you know you can only get that done

you have a low expectation on your ability and your time, your energy, then you actually ended up getting a lot more done than what you think you can, which makes you really happy. But here is when expectation fluctuates. So you have that thing done. So you have leveled up your expectation and now your expectation is at a different level, new level. And then you think tomorrow I'm going to get five paragraphs done. And then tomorrow...

The reality hits hard and then your expectation drops and then you're thinking very low of yourself and that all happens. So you just have to understand that there's no standard. You're not measuring your expectations. You just have to understand sometimes you can misunderstand yourself and your expectations and sometimes you're going to feel mad and frustrated and ashamed sometimes.

But the most important thing is don't give up if this is very important for you. But of course, how do you know this is the right path for you? And why or am I going to really continue with this path is a very important question to ask. So for example, before July, I was really trying to get everything done, but I kept getting a lot of questions from reviewers. Why this? Why that?

And before that, sorry, I got a little bit sidetracked, but I do want to mention this. This is how much I've grown since I started doing this article. So in the very beginning, when they gave me feedback, there were millions of questions why you do this or why you don't do this.

Can you explain your data? Can you explain your method? Those kind of things. My reaction, because I was thinking so low of myself, that my reaction is to just taking all the information. I felt really bad for myself that I am not a researcher material.

And as I grow bigger, older, and I am more experienced, I'm reading more, I'm thinking more, I start to question some of the questions they gave to me. I would respond to reasonable questions, say this is my answer, this is what

how I did it. And some of the questions, I just simply didn't know what the answers are. I said, I didn't understand your questions, but this is what I think the answer would be. But I'm not sure if I answered your questions, but if you mean the other way, then I don't have an answer for that. So I was like,

brave enough to say no to that question. And then as I grow older and more experienced and I got more questions about why and how and what, I start to say that this is why, this is what, we decide to delete that part or we decide to keep this part. So I have stronger belief in myself that my article is solid, but it took a very long time to realize that I can say no.

Right. So anyway, so till the end of June, I still got a lot of questions to answer. That was I don't know how many drafts I've done. I started to tell my husband that maybe I should just give up. I can't do this all the time. I feel like I spend every single night answering all the questions, fixing all the layout and the interpretation and this and that. I'm exhausted, but I don't feel moving forward anymore.

Maybe I have a wrong expectation. Maybe this is just not my thing. But I also feel like if I give up for all the effort and time and energy I put in are for nothing. So I feel it's really difficult to make this decision to balance, to justify the move.

So I'm like, I should give up. I should just tell my professor. I should tell everybody who helped me with this article. Just give up. Maybe this is not my thing. But my husband said one thing. You've come all this far and you want to give up. Why do you want to give up? So I explained the whole thing about why I want to give up. And then he said,

It's going to be finished. Good or not, just finish it, send it out and say that's it and wait. Whether they accept it or not and then you can't control it, you just let go of it. I said, okay, that makes me feel a little bit better because I can just keep doing it and fixing it until they said, yes, I accept it because I'm only working on one article. So what's the difficult part?

The difficult part is I can't accept negative comments. I can't answer all the questions. I have to face that I don't have the ability to explain everything. But my husband says, you don't have to explain everything. You have answers. Tell them the answers. You don't have answers. Just be honest with them. In my whole life, my philosophy is to find answers to questions. I never thought about I don't have answers to questions. And that is totally reasonable.

So anyway, I was thinking about the whole thing, about anger, about expectations, about giving up. I never thought about we sometimes just don't have answers. And it is okay to say we don't have answers and nothing to be ashamed of. But I guess we're hardwired since we're little and we need to have answers to everything. Maybe your parents say, why did you do that?

I have no reason. I'm little. My brain tells me to do this. To be quite honest, my brain is still developing. How am I supposed to know why I did that? I have no reason. But your parents ask you to give a reason. At age of four, at age of five, I don't know why I throw things. I don't know.

I'm just a little kid, right? And then when you are in elementary school, when you're in middle school, when you're in high school, you're supposed to have answers to all the questions. But you just don't know. Some people are smart. Some people are not. Some people are good at this. Some people are not. Maybe I'm the kind of person that I'm not good at this. I just, there's nothing I can do. But I'm so scared to say I don't have answers for it.

In university, you're supposed to have answers. Why are there people having so many skills? Why are there people doing so well but not you? I don't know. Could be because my background, my family background. Could be because how I grew up. Could be because I'm just from a poor area. I don't have the knowledge. But I can grow.

But acknowledging that you don't have the knowledge for this kind of thing is such a shameful thing. You put yourself so below other people and you think very low of yourself because

But you don't want to do it because it's very painful, right? So you're trying to avoid it. Then you pretend you have answers. And then that makes you feel even more miserable because you don't have answers. And then one day someone sees that through you and then they're going to say, hey, you just don't have answers. And what's your reaction?

Are you going to be saying, hey, yeah, I don't have answers. Or you're going to say, mind your own business. Don't point your finger at me. It's really interesting to see those three things interact. That's why I want to do this video. But of course, I'm sure I have a lot to say, but I...

I'm running out of time. This whole episode has no logic at all. I'm just saying what I'm thinking and I don't know where it leads me. That's why all of my videos have no script. I don't read, I don't recite, I don't prepare and I'm not making money out of this. And back to the original part and this is why my channel doesn't really grow fast because I don't work hard for it. And then I can't expect to grow fast.

And I can't expect people to like my channel just because, hey, the truth is you don't work hard for it. Then lower my expectation. Enjoy what I have and don't give up if this is what you like. You never know what's going to end up like. You just wait for a lot of things. You just do it and you just wait.

It might be painful in the middle of the process, but everything has an end. It's going to end. And good or not, it's going to end. So you just wait. Yeah. So anyway, I hope you like this video. I'll see you next time. I don't know when, but I hope I see you next time. Take care.