Annoyance

This week’s word came to me while I was stuck in an airport trying to get to Washington, DC.

It was Friday, and it had become one of those travel days that starts out inconvenient and then slowly turns into a nightmare. Two cancelled flights. A long line of tired people trying to rebook. Everyone needing to get somewhere. Everyone with a very good reason.

At one point, I got a message that someone had thrown up in the jetway and we had to wait for hazmat to come.

And I thought, well, this is not looking good.

I did not make it that night. I ended up taking a red-eye. But somewhere in the middle of this travel chaos, I was thinking about what word we should use for Tuesday. I jokingly thought:

Annoyance.

And that is the one we landed on.

Which is pretty perfect, actually.

Annoyance is not a grand emotion. It is not grief. It is not awe. It is not love. It is not despair.

Annoyance is small. It is everyday. It is leaf blowers and people chewing loudly and your partner leaving his black socks on the floor again and your kid asking you where their shoes are while standing next to their shoes.

Annoyance is the emotional wallpaper of being human.

And because it seems so small, we often do not take it seriously. But annoyances wear us down. What’s worse is they make us convinced that our experience is the center of the universe and everyone else is blocking the way.

Annoyance Is Not Just About the Annoying Thing

Here is the thing about annoyance: it is not only about the object of annoyance.

Because the same person can annoy you on one day and not annoy you on another.

Your mother can say the exact same thing on Monday and you laugh, and then on Thursday she says it again and you want to leave the room.

Your partner can forget to take something out to the car and one day it is no big deal, and another day you irritated.

So what changed?

Usually two things.

Your capacity.

And your story.

Capacity: How Much Room Do I Have Right Now?

Capacity is your bandwidth to be with life as it is.

And capacity is not just a mindset. It is biological.

It’s impacted by heat, hunger, sleep, stress, hormones, and illness. 

There is research showing that hotter temperatures are associated with more violence and crime. Not because people become bad people when it is hot, but because discomfort changes us. Heat makes us more irritable, more impulsive, and less resourced.

There is also research on hunger and irritability. We joke about being hangry, but it is real. When you are hungry, you are more likely to feel anger and irritation and less likely to feel pleasure. Your body is saying, please feed me, and then your mind starts saying, everyone is terrible.

And there is the famous judge study people love to quote, where judges were more likely to make favorable parole decisions earlier in the day and right after breaks. The science on this is more nuanced than the headline. It is not as simple as “judges get hungry and become mean.” But the general teaching still matters: our biological state influences our judgment. We like to imagine we are these clean, rational, fair beings making decisions from some objective place. But we are embodied. We are tired. We are hungry. We need a break. And we get annoyed.

Sleep is another big one. Poor sleep changes your social perception. Couples who sleep poorly tend to have more conflict, less positive emotion, and less ability to accurately read each other. So you wake up after a bad night of sleep, walk into the kitchen, see your partner, and suddenly their neutral face looks hostile.

This is why annoyance is so useful.

It is an early warning signal.

Annoyance says: check your capacity.

Before you believe the whole story your mind is telling about how everyone is incompetent and nobody cares and this always happens to you, ask:

Have I eaten?

Am I too hot?

Am I tired?

Am I overloaded?

Have I had any time today where nobody needed anything from me?

Because sometimes annoyance is not wisdom. Sometimes annoyance can be solved with some protein or a good night’s rest.

Story: How the Mind Turns an Incident Into a Whole Identity

The second part of annoyance is story.

This is where things get interesting.

An incident happens. Something small like someone is late, doesnt repsond to your text, or if you are like me on that dreaded red-eye flight you get stuck in the middle seat. 

That is the incident. What fuels your annoyance is when your mind adds story to it. Your mind will pull in history and all the ways you have been dissapointed before, the moments you didnt feel considered, and fuels the irritant like adding kindling to a fire. 

Your mind can take an incident and turn it into a trend, an identity, or even a false truth like 

They never think about me.

I am always the one who has to adjust.

No one respects my time.

I can’t handle this.

This is going to ruin everything.

They are incompetent.

I am trapped.

And now we are not dealing with the airport delay or dirty socks on the floor or the forgotten errand.

We are dealing with a whole elaborate story that feels real but is not true.

Annoyance Separates Us

When we are annoyed, we separate. We separate from reality, the present moment, or even the person right in front of us.  

We also separate from the fact that other people are also tired, hot, delayed, worried, trying, failing, needing a break, needing a snack, needing a little mercy.

This Week’s Practice: Work With Annoyance

Annoyance is a beautiful teacher because it arises in ordinary life. This week, do not try to get rid of annoyance.

Explore it.

1. Check capacity.

Get out of your head and into your body.

Am I hungry?

Am I tired?

Am I hot?

Am I overstimulated?

Where am I at in my cycle (if you are a menstruating person)

Do I need water, food, movement, quiet, or a break?

Sometimes the most psychologically flexible thing you can do is eat lunch.

2. Name the incident.

Get very concrete. What triggered your annoyance?

Naming the incident brings you back to reality.

3. Notice the story.

Ask yourself: What is my mind adding?

You do not have to reframe the story. Just see it as a story.

4. Ask: what is actually threatened?

Often annoyance is organized around a perceived threat to control, comfort, being respected, being seen, or to resources and time.

When you can name the threat, you tend directly to it.

5. Open the aperture.

Let the annoying thing be there, but widen your attention.

Feel your feet, notice the room, notice another person’s face.

Notice the sky.

Notice that there is more here than this one irritation.

You can hold the annoyance and also contact a bigger field.

6. Choose connection where possible.

Connection is anti-inflammatory. Instead of blaming and fixing and complaining when you are annoyed, try making contact with another person. Shift the conversation from what you are annoyed about to being interested in them. The more you get out of yourself, the less you will feel annoyed by the little things.

This Week’s Practice 

Annoyance is  window that shows us where our capacity is low and where our mind is turning an incident into a story.

It shows us our mini resistance to what is.

So this week, when annoyance shows up, see if you can pause before the complaint, check your body and tend to your capacity. Then drop the story. So, you are stuck in an airport. What is the wise next best move?