How To Totally Screw Up Your Life

I have had a good friend practically all of my life.  I wish this was a bad friend.  I really wish that I didn't have this friend at all since all it does is totally screw up my life!

This friend of mine in totally uncontrollable anger.  I can recall getting angry when the door to my darkroom (70's photography) became locked on me.  I ended up kicking a hole in the door with my steel-toed boots.  After I did that, I had that ominous hole in the door to remind me of what an idiot I had been.

I remember hearing about a friend who became really angry with his wife and ended up taking it out on the sink in his bathroom.  He pulled it out from the wall and crashed it down on the floor.  Basically, all I ask, what did that accomplish?

Anger causes you to hold grudges against people, mostly friends.  This can be extremely destructive behavior when something like this happens:  Your good friend borrows your wrench and forgets to return it.  This person calls up and asks to speak to you, however your wife answers the phone and lets you know who it is.  You respond, loudly, so your friend can hear over the phone, "Is it the WRENCH stealer ???"

Anger can cause problems when driving on the road.  You never want to let anyone merge in front of you, for that is a sin.  You never want to do anything nice for anyone else on the road.  You are always competing with the other drivers for some sort of sick contest that really has no winner.  When someone tailgates me, I used to like to slam on my brakes to drive them crazy.  What did it accomplish?  I got a few people to flip the bird in my general direction.  In worse case scenarios, and you read about them all the time in the news, people settle their road rage differences with guns or fights, or who knows what.  Luckily none of my road rage incidents have gone this far.

However, there was one time where I was freaked out.  A good friend of mine happened to be behind me and thought it would be funny to tailgate me home.  I became freaked out and did all my usual tricks including driving all over the place because I didn't want this weirdo following me home.  Boy did my neighbor have a hoot over my behavior.  Boy did I hate him for doing that to me.  I have to tell you that this neighbor has played some mighty fine jokes on me over the years, but I got him back royal just one time, and one time is all it took.

So we went to a neighborhood party.  Lots of good food and a softball game to boot.  My neighbor's wife conveniently left her car keys in the cup holder of a chair and went off talking.  I saw the keys and "borrowed" them.  The rest of the evening my neighbors car's alarm kept going off.  I would push the fob's panic button, my neighbor would run to the car to to stop the alarm.  As soon as he came back to the party, the alarm would go off again.  It was a lot of fun until the party was over and I, being a nice guy, gave him his keys back.  Boy was he pissed when he realized it was me setting off his alarm!

Back to anger.  It is not worth it.  Any kind of anger just wastes time.  Anger between spouses.  Anger between parents and children.  Anger between brothers and sisters.  Anger on the road.  Anger at work.  Anger anytime!

I have to admit I have visited with a shrink about my anger problems.  He has been extremely helpful.  One mechanism I use to combat anger is: when I realize I am getting angry, I count to three and try to imagine what the results of getting angry would be.  Guaranteed not good at all, in every case!  Problem is, anger is like a firecracker.  Once you light the fuse it is very difficult to put it out before it explodes.

If there was no anger in the world, it would be a much better place to live.  Personally, I am going to do all that I can to keep anger out of my life, because in the end whom does it hurt the most, ME!

Till next time,
Bill