I was reading a blog earlier, the premise of which was that events around us are mirrors of what is happening inside ourselves. Basically whatever wee see around us, for example people laughing and being in a generally congenial mindset, is a projection of our own good mood.  Conversely, if what we see around us is hostility and road rage (let's say) that is a reflection  of aggressions within ourselves as well.  Jung said that everything that irritates us about others can lead to better understanding of ourselves.  How we were programmed growing up will play a role in our reactions today.  Here is an example, I have a friend that when growing up was sentenced to cleaning the family bathroom as a punishment for breaking family rules (I remember that one rule she particularly liked to violate was not eating corn chips while in her bed...the crumbs drove her mother crazy, but she did it anyway).  While chipping away at her punishment, toothbrush in hand, angrily scrubbing the moldy grout of the shower, she was forced to use Pine Sol.  The green kind.  Let me tell you that to this day, if she so much as gets a whiff of Pine Sol in a restaurant bathroom, she hightails it out of there! So is it because she detests the smell of the forest green cleanser? No.  The scent conjures memories of her forced labor as a rebellious child.  To take it a step further, she was in the market for a cleaning woman,  when a new candidate showed up at her doorstep with her tools of the trade-vacuum, mops, windex- she refused entry to the woman until she sacked the Pine Sol.  Unreasonable? Maybe.  But it was a mirror of uncomfortable memories and of her mother's overbearing demeanor.  Interestingly, this friend demonstrates some of the same behaviors and rigidity that she was exposed to as a child.  All the quirks in our behaviors came from somewhere-some from childhood memories, others from more recent events.  Nevertheless, next time you find yourself getting irked by someone's behavior, scan yourself and you may discover something about yourself you previously were clear about.  We discover in ourselves what others conceal from us, and we see in others what we hide from ourselves.  Interesting stuff.