Don't blow your stack

I’ve been thinking recently about how easy it seems to be for folks to lose their tempers these days. Perhaps this is not too surprising given the fast pace at which so many people live, which results in stress and impatience. No wonder tempers flare up so often!

Unfortunately, losing your temper tends to make you feel worse, rather than better, and in fact there is medical research around that indicates that blowing your top is bad for your health. So, it is a good thing to learn to control your temper.

There a few keys to achieve this which I have found useful, and hopefully you might too. The first is simply to resist the temptation to justify yourself when you are irritated by someone or something. It is possible that you have been wronged, but that rarely translates into a good justification to blow your top; two wrongs don’t make a right. I found a great quote by Benjamin Franklin that sort of says the same thing;

"Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one."

The second key is to think of the consequences of losing your temper. The two worst consequences that concern me are the damage that it can do to your reputation and to your relationships.

Generally, people say and do the most ridiculous things once they have lost their temper. With normal restraints thrown away rash words and actions often follow, which are usually regretted later because they are so foolish. You know, it is hard to build a good reputation, and it has to be earned over time. It can be lost very, very quickly and then becomes twice as hard to win back. It is a shame to throw away a good reputation through loss of control of one’s temper.

If you are hot-tempered it will definitely affect you in all of your relationships. People are wary of hot-tempered people, and your relationships will be far more limited (and possibly short-lived!) if you don’t gain control of your temper.

Now anger isn’t just expressed as an ‘explosion’. Anger can just simmer away inside some folks, normally because of some trauma in the past. It seems such a waste when folks become so embittered because of a past event, that the rest of their lives are spoiled because of it. Bitterness is a killer, but you have to make a personal choice not to hold on to it, and leave it where it belongs – in the past. Normally, bitterness will only hurt yourself, and by holding on to it you only punish yourself.

Whether you blow up or just simmer, get rid of it. Life is a whole lot better when anger is kept chained up and under control. The passion and energy that is put into anger can be redirected into far more positive experiences in life, which can be good for you, and hopefully others too.