Anger Management 101

As we all travel through life, we encounter people who for one reason or another just make us angry.  If it is a chance encounter, it is easy to write it off as a one time event, say that you will never see this person again, and move on.  However, we all have people that cause us anger for various reasons that we need to interact with on a regular basis.  This anger may be due to their values, their interactions with others, some past event, their predictable response to situations, or you fill in the blank ___________ :o)

 

How we choose to deal with this anger is a defining moment – do you swallow the anger, making it a poison pill; or do you accept the fact that the person or situation makes you angry and just deal with it when it is encountered?  For people that swallow the anger pill, this anger becomes the reason for anything in their life that does not go as expected.  When such a person looks in the mirror, they see a victim, having been hurt and misunderstood by so many people.  If in reality they could see their past, they would see patterns of multiple broken relationships, multiple slights, and a lot of frustration and unhappiness. 

 

I think one of the reasons (the list is very long) that Beth and I get along so well is because we both fall into the second category.  When we know that we need to interact with someone that has swallowed the poison pill (I envision various larvae feeding on the anger), we anticipate the escape of the anger, and have a pre-planned exit strategy.

 

Recently, I had to interact with someone whom has caused a lot of anger for me over the past year or two.  Beth and I discussed our strategy, laying out the potential scenarios, and determined that if discussions got off track to the point that I was getting angry, the exit strategy was to simply leave and not get dragged into an argument. 

 

Sure enough, during a recent interaction with such a person, the discussion took a turn that started to cause me anger.  I simply, and abruptly, left.  As I glanced behind me, I had the perception that this person appreciated my exit strategy, this person was waving at me with one finger and shouted a dinner menu selection my way (have the “ground chuck you”).  Later, I had feedback that my abrupt exit was a “tantrum”, so I think I may not have heard clearly :o)

 

In all seriousness, such a response is unfortunate, and I hope that it was not observed by others.  Having someone respond to me in such a manner is very aggravating, but predictable.  So after a few hours of quiet contemplation, I determined my best course of action was to make this entry, and put it behind me as another encounter dealt with. It is often said that humor can help with a situation, so I hope you found some humor above.

Tags: Anger, blogplugs