Help for a "Type A" personality

Just chill.

 

It's not easy to find a middle ground. I was "competitive" (a euphemism) at a high level, and now I can be a little indifferent to my surroundings. It's a work in progress, and if the people around you accept most of who you are, then you've accomplished something.

 

I do some volunteer work answering a hotline twice a month. When I started doing it about 12 years ago, I was doing it twice a week for the first couple years. Over time it has taught me not to take a lot of stuff personally because I am just a voice on one end of the phone and the person swearing and yelling at the other end doesn't know me and never will. Sometimes I wonder if my tendency toward bluntness set them off, but the people in charge of the place often have new volunteers observe me, so I guess they think I'm good at it. It's like Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters said in Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, "It's not your movie" -- meaning I have just a walk-on role in the berserk person's extravaganza that day. That's not to say I still don't have my Type A moments, but it takes more to trigger them than it used to. Age and marriage helped, too.