An Epiphany

I have long been accused by my friends, family and co-workers that I lose temper very frequently. I could dispute and get angry but they are all true. I surrender to thee. I have a very bad temper and I know it. There is not one friend with whom I have not fought, not one. There was no day when I didn’t quarrel with my mom. [Thankfully, Dad was mostly in his office]. Not a day passes by when I don’t fight with my colleagues in office. Why does it happen, let’s analyse.

I can still recall my school days and the subsequent college days when I fought with best of my friends. This continued well into my adult life. I would discount the long years of friendship and lose temper over now laughable matters. I claim to be right almost all the times. I have a better than average general knowledge. I expect people to believe my word when I utter them. This is where things go wrong. When someone uses his/her own judgement, this somehow pisses me off and I lose it. Typically, I would just stop talking to them and stay away for as long as a month or a year sometimes. Fortunately, I realized in second year of college that this was not leading me anywhere and that I ought to change this. I did and my frequency of getting into angry arguments with friends dropped considerably. I was happy but once in a while it still spilled out in the open and I would become the same old grumpy guy. Why did I take offense so easily when my voice was unheard?

There was a time I did not like going home because of constant love and care showered by my mum. Yes, I was that ignorant and crazy sort of a son. Somehow, the concept of being loved and cared made me crawl under my skin. When I look back, I feel extremely ashamed of my acts and thoughts. I wish I could change the past but it can’t be. A simple question “When would you be back home?” would often be answered as “Why do you care? I will come when I want to” Maybe that’s what kids do while growing up. Maybe that’s how they talk to their parents. It became scary when this attitude of mine carried after college was over.

I often work in teams and teams mean I have to interact with people and more times than not it’s often work related. I lose my temper mostly because I want work to be perfectly executed and anyone letting the tempo down deserves to hear an earful until he/she comes back with better work. That’s exactly why I was always in a soup. My managers couldn’t say much to me except that I was bad with people because my work was mostly spotless. It didn’t matter much to me what people opined about me behind my back. It didn’t. This is the only situation in which I had no regrets about losing my temper. But with time, as the frequency of being labelled “bad people’s person” increased, it made me think.

Another aspect to my anger- my anger withers away in a short while but then I go super quiet afterwards. Not talking to anyone about anything. Not to the person I was angry with or anyone else I might bump into while going about my day. The reason- I felt intense feeling of regret and downright ashamed to talk to the very person I just fought with a while back. This is often taken as a sign of being continuously angry by others whereas it’s anything but.

What binds the three situations where I used to be angry- friends, family and colleagues, is that I used to take things way TOO seriously.

Why are they not taking my words on face value? That means they don’t trust me.

Why do my parents ask so many questions? Why don’t they leave me alone?

Why can’t he work like me? If he can’t do it this, then he should resign!

A few days back, an epiphany occurred and it was beautiful. I had just regretted over latest of my temper episodes. Lots of time alone and total isolation made me realize what I was doing and how could I get things back on track. I wondered how did people manage to “not get angry”. In my case, I knew I get angry very easily. It’s like I have a grenade in my hand and I also know that if I pull the pin, the grenade is going to explode and I am gonna die but still every single time I pulled that pin. You get the picture? So, knowing that you have a problem was actually NOT helping me fight that problem.

Epiphany says “Never take anything in life too seriously“. Too being the operative word. Meaning: To the point it messes with your mind, that is, your peace of mind. This “activity/relation/thought” whatever it is that constitutes your “life” could be anything, anything at all but it gives it no right to your inner self, your inner peace. You’re the only one who is its keeper and you must protect it no matter what. No matter what the “thing” in life makes you dream or promise to deliver. We should never deviate from our path of protecting this inner peace or compromise with the world because you’ll be betraying your own self in doing so, in turn losing your peace of mind. My head is a lot lighter and airy now. Come what may, I will not take matter “too” seriously. I promised myself. This epiphany isn’t something revolutionary or out-of-the-box solution. It’s just that it was hidden from plain sight all this while. Insomnia and a vomit of thoughts helped clear out this obfuscation. It’s magical how it makes you happier than you ever were.

I haven’t fought with my friends in many years now. When I say “many” it means 3-4 years. 🙂 I have not fought with my mom or dad in a very long while now. I might sound a bit irritated but that’s about it. I realize that they are my parents and they have a right to love and care for me. I can’t take this away from them. They, moms especially, are programmed to be like this and no power in the world can change that. Lastly, about my office. I have realized that not everyone is the same in this world. We are all different sort of people with different ways of thinking. We all do a particular sort of task in our own special way. I have made my peace with this thought and here we are today- a much saner mind and happier me.

It’s a continuous process. I hope to NOT get angry ever. Let’s see how long I can keep this promise to myself. 🙂

P.S: If you are judging me right now, let me add on that the prime of anger days have long gone and this epiphany addresses what’s left of my anger. Thank you. 🙂

P.P.S: It is an old post which has been updated and published now. 🙂