Worrying the Bone

Perhaps the thing I least like about me is how much time I spend thinking about moments of perceived injustice against me, and imagining entire conversations about what I should have said or would say if I could.  The reliving of such moments increases my stress, can make me indignant, angry, resentful.  At such times I am essentially rehearsing for a stressful situation that will never come.  This is bad.

The only good I can see coming from this tendency is behaving differently in the future in such situations.  The rehearsal of past events is like practicing for future events. This would be the only reason I could see why any of us would have this tendency at all.  I can see how rehearsing dangerous situations do goes way beyond that.

There are times when I am reminded of moments from years ago, with people I will never meet again, and I can worry at that bone for days.  There is nothing new there, no new experience, no new insight, nothing but this churning over the same moment, the same injustice.  These slights can be trivial too.  My latest example illustrates the idiocy of this whole thing quite well.

I was walking my dog off leash on a trail used primarily by mountain bikers, but also by joggers, families and people walking their dogs.  I have walked along this trail hundreds of times and the great majority of my interactions with bikers has been good.  The trail is often narrow enough that when a bike comes it is necessary to step off the trail to let them by, and I do this as well as I can on a wooded trail with a dog.  On this occasion I heard the bell of a biker from behind, called TFOE and tried to get off the path.  When the biker got there I was holding TFOE but hadn't got him completely off the path.  The biker had to slow down quickly but got around us without danger or needing to stop.  As he peddled away he shook his head.  I have been thinking off and on for two days about this incident.  How silly is that?

What do I think about?  I think about how unjust it was that he would think I was doing something wrong.  I think of confrontations and arguments to the point where I can feel the adrenalin start to pump.  I think of retorts like, "What if I was a six year old kid?" and "It's a trail on which people can bike, not a biking trail."  None of this does any good, I don't want to think about it, but the thoughts return repeatedly.  It's wasting stress on triviality.

I have the strong suspicion that I am not alone in this, rather that it is something that almost everyone does.

What to do?  I don't seem to be able to stop it, so I will go with identifying the silliness of what I am doing and divert my attention to something immediate and here.  Or at least I will try to do so for a bit.