1. Quit Causing Your Own Problems
I wasn't even planning on writing this section, but this morning before writing, something happened that made me feel the need to write it. A major issue we have with our anger is that we refuse to take any responsibility for anything. We might feel as though the world is out to get us, which goes back to our foundation #2 about how we expect everyone to do what we want them to do. This is silly when we realize we caused our own problem to begin with, and here's a quick story to illustrate that.
Last night, my friend babysat her cousin at her new house while her aunt went out to a show with her uncle who was in town for the week. My friend's aunt said that she would come at 9AM, but as per usual, they were running late in the morning to pick up the kid. Around 10AM, they show up to the new neighborhood and can't find the new house for the life of them. The aunt starts screaming at my friend, "Where is it?! You're going to make us miss his flight!"
Wait. Let's rewind.
The aunt was supposed to come pick up her son at 9AM. She comes an hour later, and can't find the house and blames my friend? Let that sink in for a minute. Had she shown up at the original time, she would have had plenty of time to get lost, find the house and probably get some Starbucks before taking her brother to the airport. But, due to being late as usual, she was worried she missed the flight and took her anger out on my friend.
While you may think this is funny, or ridiculous or even kind of crazy, I want you to ask yourself how many times you do this same exact thing and then blame the world even though you caused your own problems.
How many mornings do you wake up late because you hit the snooze button a few too many times? Then, while getting ready for work, you watch one more YouTube video or scroll through Instagram, Facebook or Twitter for an extra 10 minutes. Then, you leave your house in a panic because you're running late, and now there's an immense amount of traffic. Now, you have road rage and keep asking yourself, "Why won't these people learn how to drive?!"
Do you think you'd be this angry if you woke up on time and didn't spend that extra time scrolling through social media?
Staying in the theme of being late. I'm someone who was notorious for showing up to work 10-15 minutes late for the above reasons. I don't know what it was, but I just could not show up to work on time. Then, next thing you know, the boss says something to me or I get written up. All I can think is, "What an asshole!" or "But what about that other guy who showed up late?!" It's just me refusing to take responsibility for the situation once again.
When it comes to our mental health, there are so many things outside of our control, but we need to focus on what we can control. We can focus on what we're doing that might alleviate some of our own anger issues. I cannot tell you how much of my road rage went away after I started waking up and leaving earlier to go to work.
