"What is in me?"  is the necessary and sometimes painful question that must be asked. I cannot change others, the world around me, the weather or the position of my stars. But I can change myself. In somber reflection and prayer, I can trace my discomfort to its attitudinal roots. I can look clearly at what is in me and this is the area of my attitudes which I can control and change.
I can choose to be an actor and not a reactor. By being an actor I don't let the other decide how I'm going to act even under unpleasant circumstances. .. if the horse is crazy the rider or the owner should not be crazy........
As fully human persons, we need to be our own persons; we need not bend to every wind that blows. We need not be at the mercy of all the pettiness, the meanness, the impatience and anger of others.
Unfortunately, most of us feel like a floating boat at the mercy of the winds and waves. We have no sails when the winds rage and the waves churn and we say things like: "He made me so mad, ......you really ge to me, this weather really depresses me.... the very sight of him saddens me"
Note all these things are doing something to me and to my emotions. I have nothing to say about my anger, depression, sadness or whatever. I am content to blame it on others, circumstances and bad luck. But as Shakespeare puts it in Julius Caesar, know that: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not with our stars, but with ourselves..... "  We can rise above the dust of daily battle that chokes and blinds so many of us, and this is precisely what is asked of us/me in the process of growth as a person.
I need to know myself to change myself and not the other(s)....