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Why Bother?
It’s the nature of bother that provides a clue to settling upset minds.
Posted November 29, 2018
In the previous article, I suggested that the concept of “bother” was an ideal way to think about psychological discontent. This is such an important area that it might be useful spending a little more time unpacking the dynamics of botheration. What is bother, why do we get bothered, and why is being bothered so bothersome?
Bother is that sense of being out of balance, knocked off course, running up against a brick wall, stressed out, or some other experience of things not being right. Sometimes things are a little bit not right and, at other times, things can be horrendously, terrifyingly, and catastrophically not right. Lots of times during the day, things don’t turn out exactly as we would like. There’s a long queue at the café where you always get your morning coffee and you’re already late for work. Your friend phones at the last minute to cancel a night out you’ve been looking forward to for weeks. You offer to pick up the tab for the lunch you and your boss have just shared and your credit card is declined. You didn’t check the setting on the iron and now one of your favorite outfits has a hole in it. A sudden and ferocious storm has just lifted part of the roof off your house and emptied a cloud of rainwater into your living room.
Despite the large number of opportunities there are throughout the day to be bothered, we typically don’t stay bothered for very long. In fact, we’re supremely designed to duck and weave and bob and swerve and shift gears so that we maintain balance and stay on whatever track we’ve set ourselves. Sometimes, however, botheration is not so easy to shake off. Some bothers hang around for much longer than we would like them to.
Why is that? Why do some bothers evaporate in the blink of an eye while others persist and, in some cases, wreak havoc in a person’s life? Bothers that come out in the wash tend to be rather one-sided encounters. Something unsettling happens and we make whatever adjustments are necessary to smooth the waters and resume daily operations. Resistant bothers, however, keep us off balance indefinitely. These types of bothers are usually double-sided.
Suppose someone is bothered by their relationship with their partner who is becoming increasingly abusive. A seemingly straightforward and obvious solution would be to leave. That idea has occurred to them many times but, as attractive as it appears, it’s not that simple. When thoughts of leaving occur, other thoughts about the love that used to be present, and the security that exists, and doubts about making it on their own, arise. In other words, there is a conflict in place.
Actually, it is likely to be the case that any enduring bother is fueled by a conflict raging in the mind of the bothered. You have a crummy job with a critical and condescending boss but, on the other hand, the pay is pretty good, and there are no other job opportunities on the horizon. You’re bothered that you’re too overprotective as a parent, yet you will go to any lengths to prevent your child from being abused. You want to eat better, drink less, and save more money but you have a great bunch of friends who love socializing regularly and you don’t want to offend them or be left out.
Bother is the natural byproduct of fierce, yet evenly matched, competitions between an individual’s own private priorities, preferences, and values. A person can’t both leave and stay at the same time, so they’re bothered. You can’t simultaneously be a relaxed and protective parent, so you’re wracked with bother.
Bother will persist until a way is found to remove the battle. To do that, you have to get off the battlefield and out of the war zone. Sometimes, that is easier said than done, but you can’t stop the fight while you’re still in the fight. The game of tug-of-war won’t ever end while you continue to hold the rope.
The good thing about all of the preferences, priorities, expectations, standards, and procedures of how we like to live is that they are connected in important ways. There’s always a source from which any current specification is issued. So, if you can find and follow the path created by the connections, you’ll arrive at the wellspring from which both the conflicted combatants are flowing. Ironically, the warring parties are different ways of achieving the same thing. If you can find out what that thing is, you’ll discover even more ways of getting what you seek. Once you get to the source, the conflict and the bother will disappear.
Bother is generated by conflict, so solving the conflict will help to unbother your mind. The more you can learn about yourself, and become clearer about the important motivations from which your life experiences are emerging, the more you will be able to iron out the bothers of your life, and enjoy the you, you know you can be.
