Whether it is us or the people around us, everyone tends to have their peculiarities. The tendency to perceive and respond to different situations can go in many directions. But broadly it can be divided into three types of response patterns:

  • Positive
  • Negative
  • Neutral

I recall an incident with my own friend, who has a habit of complaining or feeling irritated over anything that does not go his way. We tried to help him deal with it effectively by helping him understand his response from a third person’s perspective. We proposed various remedies like talking it out to the right person, explaining his displeasure or simply say NO when it is needed.

But having learnt the behaviour of complaining and whining all the time, he found comfort in it and hence made it his second nature, instead of doing something to correct those ‘unpleasant’ experiences. However, good of a friend he was, this part of his nature was getting on our nerves, and eventually affected us too.

In another instance, I recall someone with a negative and critical response pattern. One day, he was expecting someone, but that person was delayed by 10-15 minutes. This is a normal occurrence, and most people would react by mentioning it once in passing how being tardy is not a pleasant attribute. But this acquaintance ensured to make a mention of it at least three to four times in a brief conversation of 20mins. When the person who was late left the premise, he mentioned it again to others around him. He demeaned the person for being ill-mannered while elevating himself as polite for not making a fuss of his lateness.

Now, these are some examples of my experiences but I’m sure you have come across people with such personality traits and would describe them as critical, complaining, unhappy, easily annoyed, or irritated, and so on. Sometimes, we know these people, and sometimes we are these people.

Hence, it is important that we introspect and keep a check on our responses in actions and in our minds. Instead of spending most of our energy on complaining, feeling irritated, annoyed, disappointed, and so on, we should work out ways to achieve an improved version of ourself in responding to situations that we find unpleasant.

Some introspection may help:

  • We can learn to acknowledge and accept the casual feedbacks from our closed and loved ones around us. Whether it is a harsh criticism or feedback disguised as a joke, it can be valuable for our growth and development.
  • Just like actors during their auditions who are told to present same line with 5 different emotions, we can task ourselves to deal with the same situation in 3 different ways whether we are the ones giving or receiving feedback. This way, we can focus on better ways to convey or interpret messages.
  • We can also learn to think from the perspective of the other person. How comfortable would you be if you receive such response pattern repetitively? How seriously will you take the person or be available to them? By asking yourself these questions, you can learn to understand and regulate responses.


While there are different response patterns, negative responses affect us and the people around us, the most. However, instead of ignoring them, we should learn how to recognize them in ourselves and in other people. This way, we can be better equipped to manage this response pattern. In the next article, we learn to manage anger.