Have you ever said words in a moment of anger that you wish you had not? Do you have a long list of moments where you wish you had a do-over? What about your circle of friends and loved ones, do they wish you could control your temper?

Anger is one of those pesky parts of life that, when we are feeling noble, we speak of it is if it belongs in the category of always wrong, in the same way, we proudly proclaim that violence is always wrong – but always give ourselves an out by adding the cute little “unless…”.

But the anger I want to look at here is the everyday kind of thing and the people who lose their cool over anything, without regard for how such loss of composure affects those around them.

The biggest lie that comes out from this is the excuse of I can’t control it.

Yes, you can. You might not want to, but you certainly can control it should you choose to do so.

A couple of examples come to my mind. Let’s say you are pulled over for speeding by a Police Officer. And for the sake of argument, let’s say that you honestly believe that you were not speeding. You might be angry, very angry. But you will be likely to control it and use a lot of Yes sir/ma’am phrases. Or, in the opposite extreme, think of yourself being robbed at gunpoint. Are you going to lecture the robber on how they did not work to earn your money and therefore don’t deserve it? Nah, you are going to keep your mouth shut and hand over whatever they are demanding. You will run your mouth later, but you will control yourself in the moment.

When we look at it this way, we see that there is no lack of control. It is more a matter of having given ourselves permission to lash out. When we lash out, we seldom restrict our mouths to the issue at hand. We will bring up the failings of the person we are lashing out at with no regard for how long ago these failings were made manifest. We will use terms to categorize the other person as having a deep flaw, such as always and never. In essence, we will exaggerate and lie to them about how bad they are.

When you are able to control your temper in your day to day situations, a couple of things will happen. First,, your life will improve because your outlook will be better, and the people around you will respond to you differently than before. Also, you will learn to stay focused on issues at hand, and this is a benefit on many levels.

And as a final point, I want to add that being a nice person does not have to equal being a vulnerable person. You can be nice from a position of strength. Life is a lot more pleasant when you don’t fly off the handle over everything.

I hope this is helpful. Likes and shares are greatly appreciated!