Thinking Out Loud, Volume DXV

Some people make me so mad! Especially when I'm stressed like I've been lately. As a general rule, I'm not a hot tempered person, but I do have my limits. I have to admit, however, that some of the moments in my life that I most regret are when I have gotten mad, lost my temper, and said things in a fit of rage that I shouldn't have said. When that happens, it rarely ends well. People's feelings get hurt, and they may carry that pain for years to come. Have you ever been the recipient of a "tongue lashing" that comes as the result of a burst of anger? I have, and though the whole misunderstanding may have been entirely my fault, It's still just a natural reflex to try to defend myself from the onslaught. Even when the situation ends up with apologies and forgiveness, I find myself walking on eggshells around that person for years to come in an effort to prevent a repeat of such an unpleasant circumstance, which actually causes me to avoid that person when possible. There are people who blew up at me more than twenty years ago, and even to this day, when I'm around them, I choose my words very carefully, resulting in awkward conversation. Like I was saying, this has been a very stressful week for me, and more than once I have had to fight off the temptation to set somebody straight. There are some rules I've learned that help me stay calm and in control, but at first I have to struggle to keep myself from allowing my anger to cause me to ignore those rules. The first one is simply to wait. In most instances, time will mellow my mood and I end up handling things in a much more civilized manner. Remember the rule as a child about slowly counting to ten before you speak when someone made you mad? Well, as adults, we may need to extend that count to days. If we stop and think about it, we have to admit that the other person probably had no intention of hurting or angering us. After all, we're all human and we all make mistakes, and hopefully we don't have a zero tolerance policy on mistakes for our friends and family. If we hold them to that standard, it's only fair for them to do the same to us. The golden rule says, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." If you unintentionally anger another person, wouldn't you prefer they give you the benefit of the doubt before they come unglued? For some reason, most of us look only at the here and now without considering the long term picture. I'd venture to say if we would always ask ourselves, "If I let this go, will it even matter five years from now," 99% of our conflicts would never happen. However, if we only consider our present feelings and go ahead and let our tempers rule our actions, we may find ourselves without as many friends five years down the road. It was just a couple nights ago that I woke up in the middle of the night angry at someone, and I lay there and silently planned the speech I was gonna give him. I even picked up my iPad to start putting the words in an email, but something inside of me kept telling me to wait....just wait. Give it some time. Now, I'm out of the mood to write it, and I'm so glad I didn't send an email that would've created unnecessary trouble. The conversation that caused my anger was over something trivial, and no, it won't even matter five years from now, unless I lose my cool now. There are a couple of "old sayings" that make a lot of sense if we'll just keep them in mind: "Patience is a virtue" and "Time heals all wounds." When we forget those rules, instead of healing the wounds, we create new ones. "Good things come to those who wait." Preston