anger management

Anger and hatred do not come to me very easily. This is one of the major reasons of whatever little good I have done in life and also of the failures that I have successfully accomplished. I believe anger makes one lose one's sense of proportion and commit mistakes. Since I cannot handle anger, I normally stay away from it.

Anger, like atom bomb, is more effective when it is a potential. Others must somehow be made to see that you might just get angry someday. It is the threat that even a quiet chap can sometime fly off the handle that brings people around. But this resource must not be abused, and used very very sparingly. What is the need to burst up in flames when a firm stare or a wave of hand can do?

It worked today. A senior who normally works under another senior got a chance to officiate for a while. This officiting senior promptly got down to showing everybody who the new boss is, for the time being, that is. I was instructed, in the name of a very senior official, to carry out a task that is normally reserved for some other, specific, individuals, none of whom was absent. In response, I tried to reason but was repreatedly told that the instruction came from this other senior person.

Now till a year or two ago I used to take all this lying down since I had this fear of losing such as losing money, losing face and so on. These days I have stopped bothering about such profound things since I know that these things are only partly determined by my actions, no matter how much sincerity I invest in performing them.

Things have changed since. Once I saw that reasoning with this person won't take me very far, I decided to the next logical thing. This was a bit of a bold decision because this other senior is pretty high up in the pecking order. Fortunately, I had no problem in reching this senior's office and securing an appointment. This was in itself a matter of some chance but the lady luck was in my favour this time. On being asked politely whether my senior was directed by by him to ask me to do someone else's job, he flatly replied that he had no knowldge of this fiat and that he would be fine if I continued doing the jobs normally allotted to me. He was in fact generous enough to offer to give my immediate senior a piece of his mind on this issue. But I had no intention to pick up a fight with anyone, least of all with an immediate senior.

Clear in my head and no longer angry at receiving an arbitrary order from someone who I think does not know how to handle authority very well, I politely approached the colleagues who normally handle the job concerened, suggesting them to conitnue with the present arrangemnt till further orders from above.

I strongly feel my immediate senior should not have dragged this super senior official into such a small affair as asking a junior to do a job that's slightly unfit for him. Does this mean that this senior actually knew that the idea was not exactly above board? May be that is why it was felt necessary to invoke the authority of a super senior, to preempt any protest from my side, that is. I am not writing this to show the public my fiery conscience and all that. Rubbish. I know who I am and I don't want public support or opprobrium, thank you very much. But I liked the way I was able to channelize my anger into the something not so deplorable, if not constructive. I have to thank my immediate colleagues who sensed at once that I was getting disoriented and took me out for a cup of tea and spoke to me softly, quietining me down. They have never seen me angry and they did not like what they saw. I know only too well that I cannot manage anger. That is why I just dread it. It unsettles you majorly. Today, however, I learnt a crucial lesson. If people around you offer a little help and you are able to channelize it into the right directions, anger often proves productive in very interesting ways.