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Pain in the ass (PITA) people leave their mark on us. They complicate things, add stress to our lives, and throw wrenches into our plans. Perhaps worst of all, they have no idea how much of a pain in the ass they are. And despite curating as many irritants out of our lives as possible, sometimes the presence of PITAs is not optional. Maybe we were born into a family full of 'em. Or maybe our friend or romantic partner suddenly came down with a terminal case of PITArrhea and we're too invested in the relationship to just leave.
But there's hope. A silver lining. An opportunity. If we play our cards right, we can harness the behavior of our PITAs, turning it into fuel for self-improvement. It's like the scene from Back to the Future when Doc Brown digs through Marty's trash to nourish the DeLorean for the journey ahead. Only instead of using beer cans and banana peels to fuel a flying car, we're using obliviousness and overbearance to upgrade our emotional intelligence and self-awareness.
PITAs come in all shapes and sizes, but I want to focus on two specific types: the Saboteur and the Scolder.
The Saboteur is someone who spends most of their time stepping in various avoidable bear traps. They're prolific own-goal scorers. Expert foot-snipers. And they often suffer from foot-in-mouth disease, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, thus further undermining their already unstable social standing. So far this sounds like a "them" problem, and it is. Normally we don't know or care about the poor decisions other people make. But when we love them, their self-inflicted treachery makes them a huge pain in the ass. Their fatal flaws include a lack of humility, blindness to accountability, and an unwillingness to take criticism to heart. So no matter how many traps we illuminate in the darkness, they never avoid getting snagged.
But part of being a good human is making the best of a bad situation, or at least doing our damnedest to avoid making it worse. So when we're close enough to a Saboteur, in addition to helping and supporting them, we use the observe and avoid method. If we pay attention, we get a first-hand look at cause and effect as we witness the consequences of each misstep. We don't have to imagine the impact our bad choices have on us and our loved ones because we see it play out in real-time, trailing behind in the Saboteur's wake. As we spend time observing, patterns begin to emerge. We see how repeating the same mistakes disturbs the flow of our lives. Turbulence forms around us, tarnishing the energy we put out while preventing good things from reaching us. So we use these findings to establish more positive patterns in our own lives, and our beloved Saboteurs, while incapable of helping themselves, can at least help us avoid taking the wrong path.
The Scolder is a different animal. While the Saboteur exhibits symptoms of a lack of vision, the Scolder zeroes in perfectly. But instead of focusing on the road ahead, looking for obstacles to avoid, their gaze is fixed on something else. You.
The Scolder watches closely, crouching as they position their feet into the blocks. Seeing us make a blunder is their cue to raise their butts into the ready position, and as soon as we're within earshot the starter pistol fires and they take off, hurling the nittiest of picks through the atmosphere to make sure we never miss a chance to hear how we should have done something differently. There's merit in having an honest voice around to point out when we're about to be a jackass or say “I told you so”, but the Scolder lacks all balance and tact. We all have flaws. We could all stand to be a little better, nicer, more generous, more productive, less petty, and more grateful. We all know this. We don't the obvious pointed out, nor do we need to be vilified for minor slips of the mind. But if we sift through the noise, there are certain truths we learn about ourselves that do need attention.
When we're constantly at fault, it's difficult to differentiate between accurate criticism and misguided nagging, but the practice of solving that equation levels up our introspection skills, which improves our ability to find the root cause of issues. Add to that an upgrade in humility and before we know it, we've sanded down some of our roughest edges. If we manage to do so without losing ourselves to the whims of their constant scrutiny, we come out the other side a more polished human, ready to be a better partner in future relationships.
Most PITAs come and go without us noticing. There's a level of familiarity required to even categorize someone as such. And one could argue that the level of our capacity for annoyance is directly proportional to our level of closeness with them. The more we love them, the more it hurts that they are the way they are. Some minds can be changed. Some serious discussions, when undertaken with care, can make a difference over time. But those tend to be rare. Most of the time, all we can do is learn from our PITAs so we can avoid becoming one ourselves.