It's the end of the month again, and today I'm posting another piece. I've actually wanted to write about this topic for a long time and haven't updated it; this time I want to share: "Emotional Stability".

For a period of time, I realized that I directed many of my negative emotions at the people I care about most, while I was incredibly patient with friends and colleagues.

In September, I suddenly got a call that the old desktop computer at home had broken after a power outage the previous night, and the next day it wouldn’t boot. The old computer had always been my dad's, and now the machine wouldn’t start. My dad isn’t very good with computers; he can’t type in pinyin, but he loves watching TV dramas, so I installed a Sunflower Remote Desktop on the old computer at home. If he sees something good on TV, he would tell me the name, and even when I’m out, I can remotely find the show for him and put it on the desktop. He would open it and select the episodes himself.

When I heard the power outage and the computer not booting, my first thought was that the power supply might have burned out, which indeed happened later. But I still had my mom and dad unplug and plug the power supply to see whether it was loose. After confirming it wasn’t a loose connection, I kept trying to figure out what to do. I’m not very knowledgeable about hardware; you tell me to install an OS and that might be fine, but what about this hardware issue? How can we determine what burned out? Should I use a multimeter to measure it? How would I test it? Could I fix it in such a short weekend? It was Tuesday at the time, and the weekend seemed far away…

Then my plan was to take it to computer shops for repair, compare 2–3 places, ask clearly what was wrong, roughly what to replace, and search prices to have a baseline. I asked my dad to wait for me, but he couldn’t sit still in the afternoon and dragged the computer to the computer market himself, calling me. When I heard he was going to the computer market, I was really furious—the first thought was that he would surely be ripped off, why didn’t he wait for me? The computer market has a bad reputation; maybe they swapped parts and my dad wouldn’t notice.

In that moment, my tone was very harsh; my dad was stunned, like a child who had done something wrong, asking me: "Jiejie, what should I do?" I was stunned, realizing that my impulsive temper had just flared. Why was I getting angry? Right, what should we do? My dad is solving the problem, and I can’t solve this problem. Is my solution much more advanced than his? Isn’t it the same? …In that moment, I felt very guilty for my tone and for not controlling my temper.

My dad is a practical person; he is very capable, and there isn’t a problem at home that he can’t solve. From small repairs to renovations, he understands renovation-related stuff. In my heart, he is a very impressive person. And when faced with this new type of computer, he didn’t have knowledge in this area; when confronted with my questions, he showed a very lost side, as if indeed there was something wrong with him, the son is a college student who spends every day on the computer; he should be able to understand and listen to his son… wait… perhaps the son has a solution, but does the son really have a solution…?

I realized my problem and sincerely apologized to him, saying, "Dad, you take a look first. Our desktop is very old; replacing the power supply probably won’t exceed about 80. If the price goes higher, you hold on, let me take a look." Later my dad fixed the computer for about 35. I was amazed at how cheap it was—what a good merchant we found. He said it was recommended by a friend and that they told him not to repair beyond a certain amount; he remembered that… a friend’s recommendation keeps us from getting gouged…

That moment I felt immense guilt; he is clearly a capable, meticulous, do-it-all kind of person. When did I become so irritable and unable to control my emotions? I began to reflect on myself. After thinking for a long time, I realized that regret is useless; we can treat this as growth. No matter who it is, family or anyone else, we should maintain a calm mindset; when something happens, don’t rush to get angry. Why do we get angry? because we think they’re foolish; why don’t they know something so simple? It’s like thinking the computer market is a trap—why would you go there? Actually they don’t know; they are losing due to information asymmetry. Elders indeed don’t know that the computer market is a trap; he just wants to fix this, and that’s enough. First consider putting yourself in their place at that moment and ask: would you have a better choice than they do? Don’t simply blame.

This has happened for almost three months now, and I’ve been ringing the alarm for myself, always wanting to write it down. I’ve decided to treat it as this month’s update piece, leaving the article here as a warning to myself.

Finally, here’s a photo I took a few days ago at a nearby park. I was tired after work at night, went out for a walk, and sat on a swing for a while. Wishing everyone a smooth December, the last month of 2023!

! "Shot on November 27, 2023 at 21:36, Yongtai Park, Yinzhou District, Ningbo — Swing"