How shal i deal with my feelings to decide what should really affect me and what shouldn't?

Question

Small things often affect me a great deal. How do i decide what's really important and should affect me more than other things? How should i decide what things should be given more priority and which should be given the least?

Answer 1

I'm not sure what type of things you mean exactly, so I'll offer some general ideas:

You have to first consider "All of Life", and it doesn't hurt to believe there could be God who is watching you and paying attention to what you think is important and what you forget is really important. Many people who have been through awful things have a very good picture of what is important in life and what just isn't - and usually the only really important thing in one's individual life is his own health and the health of his family. If everyone is generally healthy (or has medical matters that are manageable) one is fortunate, and nothing else really matters. I have a kind of flippant saying I always think of when someone makes a big deal out of nothing, and that is, "There are children starving in India." That one saying puts a lot of things into perspective.

There is also, however, "Your Life". You have to sort out what you want in your life, what things you need to do to have the life you want, and be ready to start again when any of those things that help you achieve your goals don't work out. Ask what things are important in building your future or life or taking care of yourself.

There is "Your Internal Life". This is about the things that you feel you need in order to be reasonably happy. This can be the basics (food, sleep, a roof over your head) or it can be something that may not be important to other people (like having things neat and tidy or having flowers on your table). These things are important in their own way because they're the things you need to feel happy.

Besides the whole "spectrum of life", there is "You and Others" (including pets, by the way). This is about whether someone or something is depending on you, whether you have a responsibility to someone (or something, like a pet), and whether something will nurture the relationships you have. These are important too.

So those are some factors in helping a person sort out what is important.
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If you're talking about doing tasks you have to ask:

What is urgent, what can wait for a little while, and what could actually be left undone if necessary. You can also ask what you can do very quickly, which would reduce the number of tasks you need to get done.

You could take care of what is urgent, eliminate a bunch of quickie tasks that don't take long to do, approach the "can wait a little while" tasks one at a time, and set aside the "can be left undone if necessary". Some day when you have the time you can do some project you've let sit.

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Other ways of deciding what should matter or affect you are to ask:

How would someone with integrity handle this?
How would someone with dignity handle this?
How would someone who is intelligent handle this?
How would someone with self-respect handle this?
How would someone who respects others handle this?
How would someone who is mature handle this?

Also, you can ask yourself if stressing out over some particular thing is worth risking your health, because every time you stress out over something you are contributing to possible health consequences.

You can also ask (if another person is involved), "Is this person worth this?"
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Those are all the tricks I have when it comes to ideas about prioritizing or letting things affect you.

One final thought: I have this thing I do when some little thing may seem as if it is going to bother me more than it should: I think of everything I have been given in this world and everything I should be (and am) extremely appreciative of; and I imagine how maybe - if there's God - there could be some horrible lesson planned for me if I ever, ever, forget how much I should be happy with what I have been given. Quite simply, it is the proverbial "fear of God" that often keeps me remembering what is important in life.

Answer 2

Understand that this is a process of developing you own set of values. It is not easy but necessary to do. A lot of people never do and as a result they have no sense of self-worth. Most of this has to do with how you feel about things. Make a list and then number the items in order of importance to you and your life--no one else. Weigh each item as very important requiring priority and those items which require less priority. This is a start. It is a journey of self-discovery. I wish you all the best.

Answer 3

When you agree that they are small things, you also know that the feelings getting more affected is not reasonable. The clue is very much within you. The emotional mind is not ready to compromise with your own logical mind ! Just give time to emotions to resolve, and allow logic to prevail, and take over . By learning to have a fair control over small emotions, and even by creating a good balance between negative and positive emotions, a person can give more importance to logical aspect and thus the reasonable importance to handling of material aspect of life !

Answer 4

more than likely if small things affect you quite a bit there is a larger problem. If you sort out your large problems (social life, school, financial) you won't worry about smaller things nearly as much since you will be a lot happier. reevaluate your current situation and figure out what things bothering you. then think about how you can solve those problems. there isn't any fast way to fix your mental health, but with determination and confidence in yourself you can overcome anything.