There was a time in my life where anger controlled everything I did. People jumped when I said jump, I motivated myself, things got done, my debt was small and my finances managed. Although angry, these were relatively happy times. I was in control.
I came to a point where my anger was directed inward and I was unhappy with my treatment of others. I went to the mountains and had a long talk with myself. I had several meditations. I participated briefly in non-mainstream religion focused on the earth, spirit and peace. I made a conscious decision to cut anger out of my life completely. I would go with the flow and accept whatever destiny tossed my way.
I also made a decision around this time to quit feverously seeking a mate. I would date and I would date everything with curves that showed the slightest interest. I had a university with somewhere around 16,000 women to conquer and I had the mindset that I would do just that!
Isn’t it funny how when you quit looking for something it comes right to you. In all my times of chasing women, the times they actually desired me the most were the times I didn’t want them.
Enter my first wife. We dated once. On our second date, she was “too tired to drive home” so my roommate and I being incredibly laid back and carefree said the same thing we would say to anyone else, “sure, stay over.” She never went home again. At one point, a week or two later, my roommate and I flat out asked her to go home (we were running out of clothes at an incredible rate). She went home and came right back. It wasn’t long before I was angry again and yelling frequently. At one point she explained, “I communicate by yelling.” The next 7 years of my life would have lots of yelling.
Of late I’ve been biting my tongue so hard that it bleeds and trying my darnest to make sure that I am not unnecessarily outlashing at anyone. Of course I have failures and afterwards I mentally beat myself to a pulp for my weakness. The failures are mostly around the kids and family although I recently flipped a radio station van the bird. Considering that one and perhaps 2 other incidents that I quickly corrected, I can think of almost no road rage in the past many years of my life. I’ve twice been threatened with a gun over road rage incidents in my early 20s – once it took me a couple of minutes to process that the guy was offering to shoot me; the other time I begged him to try.
Since high school drywall has not stood a chance against me except in the rare case that their ally the two by four jumps into the fight. Cider block proves to be a much more worthy adversary but not for lack of trying; fortunately I never broke my hand but I certainly thought I did a couple of times. We have one wall that remains a memorial to such stupidity although I cannot remember if it happened during this marriage or last. I do know that I have had the urge on more than one occasion but I have definitely resisted successfully.
Perhaps I should return to just being an angry person all the time. Happy seems like so much work with so little gain.
Let me be the enemy! My family will rally against me but they will be unified and they will be stronger for it.
I do not like anger.
