The Cynical Buffer

Something I’ve caught myself doing lately is anticipating bad things, just before an event where the outcome could be positive or negative occurs.

For example…

I have been applying for jobs and every time I get an email from one of the companies I’ve applied to, I open it and a little voice in my head dictates a brief script of what the worst possible thing they could say to me is, if they have rejected my application.

When I am looking online for scooter insurance (horridly expensive in Italy, even for 50cc**) I hit “return” fully expecting to have the quote flash up at thousands of Euros.

When I go out on my bicycle I am primed for flat tyres, cold weather and possibly someone robbing the bike off me. This may sound like a cyclist’s caution but it is my default emotional state

Then I began wondering…

Why does all this pre-emptive paranoia and anticipatory negativity come about in the first place? The answer is that I am buffering and preparing for disappointment by adding just a bit of negativity into my experiences, so that it won’t hurt quite so much if I am crushed or disappointed.

Most of our negative mindsets come from bad stuff that happened to us as kids. That I fundamentally believe. I have friends who tell me to stop whinging about it all and move on however the problem with that is you need to isolate what it is that is causing the feelings in the first place.

The ability to unconditionally relax and enjoy an experience is something I lost a very long time ago. My extended family took an immense amount of pleasure in pissing each other off. Not in a joking, banter-esque fashion but rather in a way that caused the other person to actually suffer. They seemed to excuse this behaviour with the handwave of “I’m not hitting” but the main problem for a kid born into this environment is that an expectation of getting bubbles burst will lock itself down into the psyche.

Yesterday was the annual Open Day at my school. This is the only time a teacher will be approached by parents as if he or she is a consultant surgeon. I had already prepared for what was going to unfold throughout the day. I had about 25 sets of parents booked in…in 6 minute windows. Italians are notoriously unpunctual in the same way the English drink tea and my mind had quietly prepped that most or all would arrive late, that there would be a civilised chaos outside my classroom while latecomers squabbled amongst themselves for who got to go in next. I also imagined an argument or two about a child being unhappy in my classes. Etc, etc.

As it was the day went very well. While the unpunctuality was in play, about 8 never showed up and those that did were highly complimentary of both me and my classes, with several saying that their children like my lessons and want to continue with me at the next level in September. One father even told me “It’s nice to meet you, my son talks a lot about you” while a mother said “My boy loves your classes, he says it’s like going to the cinema”.

Overall, a great day with tons of positive feedback and satisfied parents (not to mention my bosses who were pleased too).

The buffers that I use are from childhood. A self defensive measure to avoid greater hurt by putting just a little bit of it into the mix. A kind of injury inoculation. If you are unconditionally happy when disappointment happens then it can bring you to your knees. If you are already in the mindset (just slightly) of negativity, then you can brace yourself for the greater pain. Kind of like getting into what they call “semi-passive” stance in martial arts training: hands up, palms forward, ready for either good or bad.

A friend of mine recently said to me “one chance comment does not make or break the event” when I told her about the awesome day I’d had where one grumpy remark had caused me to reflect ONLY on that. I had already realised, the day after the event, that I had concentrated on that one tiny aspect as the powder for the spark to light the fuse of my protective bomb, should greater disappointment later arrive.

Stepping back from this is easier than I thought. It has simply been buried for so long that not only did I not realise why I was doing it but I thought it was a normal reaction anyway.

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** Mainly as 90% are ridden by 14 year old boy racers and in Italy the insurance is divided amongst the entire group expected to ride the vehicle. Ride a 400cc and pay next to nothing. Go figure.