If These 11 Everyday Situations Make You Irrationally Angry, You’re Probably Carrying Too Much Responsibility
larisa Stefanjuk / ShutterstockThere is a lot of pressure that comes with our daily routines. We get caught up in what we need to accomplish. Whether it’s tasks at work, our home care routines, or the responsibilities we carry for others, it’s not easy to keep afloat. We may not notice we are in over our heads until it is too late.
We carry emotional weight we shouldn’t. It’s not always easy to rationalize this in our minds. The overwhelming feeling can strike us too late. It can also look different from person to person. One sign that you may be in over your head is how you respond to common occurrences. When you are struggling, whether you know it or not, you will have a shorter fuse. When someone does something you find annoying or dumb, you’ll find yourself reacting in ways that surprise you. It will make you feel irrationally angry. When you feel this way, try looking at the situation at hand and reevaluate your responsibilities.
If these 11 everyday situations make you irrationally angry, you’re probably carrying too much responsibility
1. People running late
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When you carry a lot of responsibility, you take your time seriously. You plan to ensure that you are ready for anything. When you feel like someone else isn’t applying that same respect, you can grow irrationally angry. If you’re counting on someone to help with something and they don't show up on time, that is frustrating. However, if the weight of the world is on your shoulders, this will feel especially intolerable.
You know that your time is valuable. You have about a million things to do every day. It’s not uncommon to feel disrespected by people who practice lateness, but when you are in over your head, it hits harder.
2. Disorganization
If you’ve taken on too many tasks, disorganization can send you into a frenzy. It’s hard to focus when nothing around you is in order. It will make you even angrier if someone else is to blame for the mess. If a co-worker or your partner at home leaves a trail of mess behind them and you feel like you’re the only one who cleans it up, you’ll become irrationally angry. Taking on too much responsibility is overwhelming, especially when disorganization makes it hard to accomplish anything.
With disorganization comes clutter. There are mental consequences to working in a cluttered space. When you feel like you can’t accomplish any of your responsibilities and the room around you is filled with clutter, you will become angry. If that’s the case, it may be time to drop some of your obligations for your own mental health.
3. Obvious answers
We’ve all heard the saying, ‘thank you, Captain Obvious.’ What is so frustrating about hearing someone give an obvious answer to something? It could be because when you think everyone around you relies on you, and you seek help, you want the contributions to be beneficial. If something obvious is shared, it takes away from the assistance you need. You could have thought of that yourself and grow irrationally angry.
Being the person that everyone relies on is exhausting. You are likely overworked and over-relied on. Obvious or unintelligent answers will get under your skin because you are far too overwhelmed, and it is impacting your patience.
4. Repeating yourself
I will be honest, one of my greatest pet peeves is having to repeat myself. It’s not because I get upset with the person for not hearing me the first time. There’s something about saying the same thing more than once that makes my skin crawl. If you notice that when someone asks you to repeat yourself, you find yourself irrationally angry, it could be because your patience is thin. Carrying too much responsibility can make you feel irritable over the simplest things.
When we carry too much weight on our shoulders, we become easily irritable. The causes can stem from anxiety to lack of sleep. Whatever the reason is, it’s not easy to keep your cool when things feel tough. Something as simple as repeating yourself can push you over the edge.
5. Changes in plans
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When you are carrying too much responsibility, whether that be at work, at home, or in your personal life, finding time for things can feel impossible. When you can make time in your schedule to see or help someone else, it likely took effort to do so. There are few things more frustrating than when that person then cancels or changes plans. You can find yourself getting caught up in all of the things you could be doing instead.
In the moments you do not feel overwhelmed by responsibility, it may be easier to accept. Not everything will work out perfectly all the time. However, when hard work goes into making plans, and they get changed, it can feel like a gut punch.
6. Being asked simple questions
Simple questions feel frustrating when you are drowning in responsibility. You have too much on your mind to help others with things you find to be common sense. We have all heard the phrase there is no such thing as a stupid question, but in some moments, it feels like there are. It’s hard to respond with patience when the buzz inside your head is causing you too much stress.
A simple question looks different for everyone, but it’s typically one that seems to have a definite answer. If someone at work asks if they have to do something a certain way, after you told them multiple times that they do, you can easily become frustrated. When you’re trying to accomplish your own tasks, it can feel overwhelming to help someone else with something you think is easily understood. It’s likely the amount of responsibility that makes you feel as though you are going to explode at any minute. The anger is linked to the pressure we put on ourselves.
7. Feeling too guilty to relax
There is a myth that rest equates to laziness. When we take on too much responsibility, finding the time to rest can feel impossible. The moments we can take a second to ourselves, we often feel guilty. We’re thinking of all of the things we have to do. It’s not uncommon to believe that to be productive, we have to be constantly moving and checking off every to-do list item we have. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We can carry our responsibilities more easily when we take time to relax. Instead, we feel irrationally angry when we have to step away from our responsibilities to take care of ourselves.
“High achievers often treat rest like a reward you get after the work is done. But the truth is, rest is part of the work. It’s the invisible ingredient that makes everything else possible,” says Tiffany Moon, M.D., for Psychology Today. “When we build rest into our lives intentionally, we’re not slowing down progress; we’re making sure progress is sustainable.”
8. Having to correct other people's mistakes
Picture this: you have recently taken on a new responsibility at work. Beyond managing your own team, you are also in charge of a special project. This is exciting, but it is also stressful. You may get so caught up in your new responsibility that you become irrationally angry in everyday situations with your colleagues. Suddenly, correcting their mistakes feels like the biggest chore in the world, and shows that you are right in every situation and they are wrong. Why should you have to do that when they should be able to handle completing something correctly the first time around?
This irrational anger is a symptom of stress. The weight of responsibility is weighing too heavily on your shoulders. You may have had unshakable patience before, but now it feels impossible to juggle it all. If that’s the case, it may be time to address your responsibilities and see what you can change.
9. The inability to say no
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It’s hard to say no. It’s especially complicated when you’re responsible for many things. When someone is counting on you, telling them you cannot do something feels impossible. However, we are harming ourselves by not being selfish in these moments. Whether it’s because we feel we are the only ones who can handle a task or because we need to impress someone else, taking on too many responsibilities can lead to irrational anger about overextending ourselves.
If it seems like we can’t say no, we become irrationally angry. We will start to resent everyone around us and fail to set proper boundaries. “One of the clearest signals that your boundaries are weak or that you are caught in a cycle of serial fixing is resentment. That simmering frustration often arises when you have overextended yourself to meet other people’s needs while neglecting your own,” says Leah Marone, LCSW, for Psychology Today.
10. Traffic
Let’s face it, no one wants to encounter traffic. If we had a way to eliminate it entirely, we would all be much happier. However, when you have too many responsibilities piling up, a traffic jam can send you into an irrational rage. You are likely running around from place to place, trying to check every box. If something like a traffic jam puts your schedule at risk, it can ruin your whole day.
No matter how stressed out you are, traffic is exhausting and irritating. If you value punctuality, this can put a wrench into your responsibilities. It’s not surprising that it makes us irrationally angry when it throws off our entire game plan.
11. Last-minute changes
If you carry a lot of weight at work, for example, even slight changes can send you over the edge. Let’s say you worked hard on a report. Suddenly, your boss wants you to make last-minute changes. However, you have multiple other tasks to get to. Usually, you’d play it cool, but since you have too much responsibility you’re carrying, this can send you into anger.
Last-minute changes do not only take place at work. Maybe it is your partner telling you within the hour that he needs you to attend an event with him, throwing off your whole evening. Or, your kid has a project due for school the next day that they forgot about until you were in the middle of responding to emails. When your responsibilities collide, it's easy to become angry.
Haley Van Horn is a freelance writer with a master’s degree in Humanities, living in Los Angeles. Her focus includes entertainment and lifestyle stories.
