Tag: step back

I’ve read a lot lately about anger, and anger management and often ask myself, can it really be addressed? I don’t class myself as having anger issues, I’m more of an impatient person. In my teenage years I really did have anger issues and I put that down to my upbringing, especially my father’s influence upon me. He had vile tempers and when he blew the entire town knew about it, he had one hell of a reputation.

I think I’ve stated before that I have always had this fear of being compared to my father, and as I grow older, people see me now and even comment on how much I look like him. I really dislike this as I don’t want to be compared to, or even be reminded of him. I think I’m losing that battle.

So back to anger management.

I spent 6 hours yesterday working on a single circuit board. It had numerous issues and a raft of problems that needed addressing. 4hrs into it and I was getting a positive signal from it, and things looked promising until, the wiring loom melted. There was an issue that I should have first addressed, a school boy issue, but I jumped ahead of myself and it failed miserably after looking so promising. I’m so annoyed but remained focused.

I had a second spare board. So set to work on this. I’d learnt the issues from the first board so preparation was a lot easier and within an hour I was at the same point as the previous attempt.

And then I tested it. I had a signal, I had an image, I also had movement on the screen but it was very dim. Apparently on this board the backlight circuit decided to fail and that was it for this attempt. Damn it, I was bordering anger at this point and then I took a small break.

I begged myself to not get angry. What would this achieve, think of something good about today, and then it hit me. I’m failing, but I’m learning. Isn’t that a positive?

I have one more board. I’ve prepared it again to the point of failure of both the previous boards and I will get on to this today, this one took me 30 minutes, my speed is up. Then I stopped for the day.

I slept on it last night and have really thought it through, today I am actually quite pleased with myself as I have gone through what I learned yesterday and the knowledge I have gained from this one job is immense. I could still fail on this third attempt but looking on it positively I now have three boards as spares, I have more knowledge than I did yesterday morning and I’m now determined to accomplish what I set out to do in the first place. I’m not a quitter and this challenge remains just that. A challenge.

But the biggest achievement of the day was that I did not get angry. Anger achieves nothing, it alienates you and upsets others who don’t deserve it. Just because you are having difficulties there is no need to let everyone else know “You can’t handle the pressure”.

My first question in this post was, “Can anger be addressed?” Yes it can, but you as an individual have to deal with it, take a step back, and approach a problem from a different perspective.

We have choices, the two things we have total control over are our thoughts and our actions. We just need to be wiser in how we choose to mange these two choices, for your own personal good and for that of others.

I never want to be angry. I don’t want to be like him. Annoyed is acceptable, just don’t let it fester and develop into something a whole lot worse.

Have a peaceful, pleasant day.