Irritants Shape Attitudes

A Story by Arun Sapre

The irritants faced by individuals actually shapes their attitude.

Personality development is more of a mind game one plays consciously and unconsciously within the social setting one is in. Shaping of mind and its exposition gives visibility to the personality. It gets broadly categorised in a variety of ways like liberal, disciplinarian, aggressive, timid, jovial, serious, grumpy, smart, shrewd etc. It may not be a final word on anybody, but a general impression of the common observers. What is all that contributes to the shaping of attitudes one develops over time? Both positives and negatives happening in personal and social life contribute to this shaping through a unique chemistry, specific to the individual.

Positives like good health, early grooming, exposure to right inputs, right opportunities, no major irritants to face etc provide higher pedestal to build further, speedily. Such smooth sailings do give success stories in which right things have happened at right times. Nothing exciting and nothing debatable, only uniquely recognisable smooth passage. Such copy-book-style personalities have played their role in smooth functioning and sustaining institutions, businesses and professions. Historically, these personalities have given strong base to a variety of human activities and not much disruptions. Academicians, scholars, diplomats, entrepreneurs, professionals etc have played this role that only generates a feeling of admiration and a kind of envy for their smooth sailing and credible contribution. They have also helped in overcoming unanticipated disruptions created by others. They could be called healers, restorers, stabilisers and core strength. Perhaps stars have favoured them.

Problems arise with negatives those generate irritants resulting in slowing down. It becomes a race of hurdles for a majority of humans. They are not destined to have smooth sailing in life, and remain agitated. It is a jerky and disruptive journey, challenging and yet sometimes rewarding. It is likely to be more creative, innovative, eye-catching, spicy, adventurous and debatable. Most of the creative works have happened from the individuals who have to think differently to overcome adversities and proceed. Such personalities are there to be seen in all fields. Dealing with uncertainties of life, looking at out-of-box solutions to tackle unusual situations is what they are compelled to do. Many fail, few succeed and become icons inviting crazy attention and subjects of interesting debates. Such are the interesting stories of many artists, entrepreneurs, scientists, writers, reformists, social workers as also adventurers, warriors and criminals. Variety of irritants have played a role in these unique personalities. It is worth looking at irritants which shape attitudes in life.

There are many sources of irritants, inclusive of physical conditions, surroundings, habits, influences, interests, hypocrisy, monotony/routines, crunch, food, no peace, ill-treatment etc. The first and foremost source is all kinds of physical deficiencies or handicaps or ailments. They put restriction on normal functioning and behaviour, always keep bothering. For example, a blind person is deprived of visual information or an obese is deprived of normal agility. Lack of normal surroundings or ambience does form an irritant. For example, there is no pleasure in staying in a dirty environment. Odd personal habits, and also of those around, do have unnerving effect. A situation of mistrust scares many. Excessive influences of disliked persons does have negative effect. Personal interests, like expensive lifestyle, leading to kind of addictions, like criminality, do have detrimental effects, are physically taxing and are a burden on personality. Hypocrisy, jealousy and hatred seen around is a big source of irritant as it undermines pleasure of decent life. Monotony and disliked routines are big irritants as they make one get fed up with the job. Inability to meet normal necessities unnerves everyone. Not getting appropriate nutritional intakes creates irritation. Atmosphere of pressure, anxiety and botheration deprives peace and is a big irritant. Similarly, ill-treatment of any kind from any source is unnerving. All these varied irritants and their impact on shaping attitudes of individuals is puzzling, as the outcome is much unpredictable. The combination of irritants, situations and individual nature forms a complex compound, the personality.

The irritants could be looked at in a different format. For example, the physical irritants could arise out of location (such as hostile climate, terrain, isolation etc), lifestyle/behaviour (uncomfortable habits and postures at home and at work places, noisy conditions, ventilation problems etc) and nature of work (laborious, repetitive, exhausting etc). The psychological irritants come up due to uninteresting work, boredom, unsolicited advice, outside interference, nagging, wrong company, strong dislikes, monotony etc. Many of these are faced not by choice. The social irritants are more of impositions of the situations one is in, not out of choice. For example, reformists in traditional settings or criminal tendencies in society or discriminations of various kinds or ethnic disputes etc are in-built irritants everyone has to live with. There are also professional irritants generated out of rivalries, jealousy, differing opinions, competitions etc. Often the professions are taken up out of circumstances or wrong judgements and not out of choice. In a way, many of the irritants come along with various choices one makes in the course of life and has to live with them.

Irritants invariably influence development of attitudes and also change in attitudes. In the background of poverty, discriminations and deprivations one may develop socialistic attitude. But with prosperity and growth one may shift to conservative attitude, not liking restrictions, enjoying freedom and no harshness. Fed-up with looseness arising out of social freedom, one could get converted to disciplinarian. Finding poor response to softness in getting the work done, one may get strict to improve performance. A jovial person may get grumpy if he feels being taken for a ride. A smart getting his/her way is appreciated, but over-smartness finds resistance. Losing due to not being shrewd enough may irritate, but being called a shrewd is equally irritating. Attitudes keep swinging on both sides as irritants are seen on both sides. Experience and developing situations decide the attitudes.

Transformative attitudinal changes are quite rare. Early impact of events and formation of views/attitudes remain intact unless something rare happens in life. In fact, attitudes have the tendency to get hardened, as the brain refuses to accept anything new and change the views. The ideologies first accepted, rarely change. So a communist becoming a conservative or vice-a-versa is just not possible. However, when the things don’t happen the way it was thought, some softening of ideologies and attitudes do take place over long time frame. Such things have happened in history. People giving up completely what they practiced for long have been observed, although a rarity. Gradual shift towards liberal social values or market economy are the best example. With advancing age, people giving up luxury and adopting charity and simplicity is a common experience. Reconciliations between sworn enemies is common with passage of time. Magnitude of failures, futility of hard postures and the associated irritants do trigger change in attitudes, policies and actions. However, in general, one lives with irritants. People are normally inert to accept change and reform.