Been thinking about something someone told me recently.
They were talking about their job in a way that honestly felt kind of rare. They weren’t venting. They weren’t doom-scrolling their way through a complaint session. They genuinely liked what they did. They liked the mission, the people, the day-to-day. And then they said, almost casually, like it was the most obvious thing in the world: they just needed their boss to be different than they are.
If you’ve ever had that thought, you know exactly what it does to your brain. It takes a situation that’s mostly fine and turns it into this constant background hum of friction. Not always loud. Not always dramatic. But always there. Like your mind is quietly running a side meeting all day where the agenda is: “Here’s who you are… and here’s who you should be instead.”
“Here’s who you are… and here’s who you should be instead.”
And the holidays have a way of turning that volume up.
Because it’s not just one person, is it? It’s everybody. It’s the family patterns that show up right on schedule. It’s the coworker energy you can usually tolerate, but not when you’re running on fumes. It’s travel, hosting, budgets, expectations, the weird emotional whiplash of gratitude and exhaustion living in the same hour. And then, just as you’re starting to crawl out of it, the new year hits like a starting gun and suddenly everyone’s calendar is sprinting again.
That’s what’s been sitting with me: how much peace we lose—not to the actual situation—but to the internal argument we keep having with reality.
The shift I’m trying to practice is simple to say and harder to do: I see what’s true right now, and I’m going to stop arguing with it in my head.
That’s not approval. That’s not “everything is fine.” That’s not pretending someone’s behavior doesn’t have impact. It’s just refusing to donate extra energy to the part where I replay the same disappointment and try to mentally remodel another human being.
Because once you notice it, you realize how exhausting that mental fighting is. It’s invisible work. Nobody sees it. Nobody thanks you for it. It doesn’t actually change the person. It just drains you.
It doesn’t actually change the person. It just drains you.
And here’s the part that surprised me: when you stop fighting reality internally, you don’t become weaker. You often become clearer.
Think about the chronically-late person in your life. We all have one. Maybe you love them. Maybe you roll your eyes at them. Maybe both. If you keep building plans that require them to suddenly become punctual, you’re basically setting yourself up for the same frustration on repeat. Then you get the bonus round where you re-live it afterward. You tell the story again. You stack meaning on it. You turn it into a whole thing.
But what if you just… accept what’s true? This person runs late. That’s not a moral endorsement. It’s a data point.
It’s a data point.
Once you treat it like a data point, you can plan like a sane person. You choose plans where their lateness doesn’t wreck the whole experience. You give an earlier start time. You separate “I don’t love this pattern” from “I’m going to let this pattern hijack my nervous system for three days.”
That’s the kind of acceptance I mean. The kind that buys back peace by removing the extra suffering we accidentally add. And a lot of the time, the suffering isn’t even coming from what someone did. It’s coming from the story we tell ourselves about what it means.
When things are busy, our brains get lazy in a very specific way. We start assigning intent. We decide we know why someone did what they did. We assume they’re being difficult on purpose. We assume they’re ignoring us. We assume this is disrespect. We assume this is personal. Sometimes it is. But a lot of the time… it’s not. A lot of the time people are overloaded, socially fried, anxious, distracted, or stuck in their own loop.
We start assigning intent. We decide we know why someone did what they did.
And I’ve noticed something about the moments that feel most peaceful: they’re usually the moments where I choose a story that is both plausible and less inflammatory. Not because I’m trying to be naive. Because I’m trying to stay regulated.
It’s amazing how different your body feels when the narrative shifts from “they’re doing this to me” to “they’re struggling,” or “they’re limited,” or “they’re controlling what they can control.” You still might need to address the behavior. But you’re not turning your own stress response into a bonfire first.
This is where I keep coming back to control. Not in the “control everything” sense. In the “be honest about where your influence ends” sense.
The holidays punish wasted effort. The busy start to a new year punishes it even more. And one of the biggest energy leaks I see in myself is trying to control things I can’t control: someone else’s personality, someone else’s coping style, someone else’s emotional range, someone else’s need to comment on everything.
If you want a shortcut to peace, it might be this: stop investing in the parts you can’t move, and start investing in the parts you can.
stop investing in the parts you can’t move
You can’t control whether a family member makes the comment. You can control whether you debate it, disengage, redirect, change rooms, go for a walk, or leave. You can’t control whether your boss becomes more self-aware overnight. You can control how you frame your expectations, how you ask for what you need, how you document, how you protect your bandwidth, how you take care of your own nervous system.
That’s not resignation. That’s strategy. And strategy gets even more powerful when it includes boundaries that aren’t dramatic.
That’s not resignation. That’s strategy.
That kind of boundary does something subtle but huge: it calms your nervous system ahead of time. You’re not walking into the room hoping everyone behaves. You’re walking into the room knowing you have options if they don’t.
Even if you’ve done a ton of work on yourself, stress can bring the old patterns back online. Suddenly you’re scanning for rejection or criticism. Suddenly an awkward moment feels like a referendum on you. Suddenly someone’s emotional limitation feels like your problem to fix.
One of the most grounding things you can do in those moments is separate someone’s limitation from your worth. Just because they can’t meet you in the way you want doesn’t mean you’re unlovable. Just because they respond with sarcasm doesn’t mean you did something wrong. Sometimes it’s simply: this is the version of connection they’re capable of right now.
this is the version of connection they’re capable of right now
When I’m most reactive, it’s usually because I’m overloaded. And when I’m overloaded, my patience becomes a resource that needs management, not a personality trait I should shame myself for not having on demand.
There’s something stabilizing about being able to say: it makes sense that I’m irritated. I’m tired. I’ve been on for too long. I can slow down and choose one next right action. That self-kindness isn’t indulgent. It’s regulating. It’s the difference between “I’m failing at being patient” and “I’m a human under stress, and I’m going to support myself like one.”
So if you’re heading into the next week (or the next month) bracing for certain people, certain patterns…. when you feel that internal argument start up, pause and notice it. Notice the part of you trying to rewrite reality. Notice the part of you insisting someone should be different. Notice the part of you rehearsing the same disappointment.
And then try the smallest possible pivot: name what’s true, let yourself dislike it, and choose the move you control. Sometimes that move is a reframe. Sometimes it’s a boundary. Sometimes it’s disengaging without guilt. Sometimes it’s going to bed early and letting tomorrow be tomorrow.
Peace doesn’t come from everything being smooth.
Peace doesn’t come from everything being smooth. Peace comes from refusing to run a constant internal campaign against reality. And honestly? During the holidays and the start of a new year, that might be the most practical gift we can give ourselves.
