by Leo Volont » Sun Jul 17, 2016 4:18 am
Dear Spilling,
Wow! What a Great Presentation. I hope my Reply to you had helped elicit such a well written and detailed Response. In that way my Reply would have been ‘good for something’.
Yes, even while Writing my ‘Escape On a Jet Plane’ Plan for you, I knew that I was simply entertaining a kind of Fantasy. But then, once the writing was over, and I had time to Ponder what I wrote… well, Too Many Holes! Too many potential setbacks and complications. I am rather surprised at myself for Tunnel Visioning through so many such Obvious Objections. But… Writing all of that had been a
Great Deal of Fun. WAS Fun! And I hope you enjoyed it a bit, as kind of a Whiff of Fragrance from some Out of Reach Piece of Forbidden Fruit. The Way you Reprised my Advice… well, you apparently understand the Appeal of what I writing about. So maybe, you had indeed enjoyed reading it.
But NOW, down to fresh Anger Management Business.
Yes, you are not a Temperamentally an Angry Man. It was impressive that you could Keep Yourself Well Under Control even when under prolonged Investigation – such things are stressful and it is difficult not cross the line of merely being Peevish about it all. But Not getting Angry during a Life or Death Fight, well, surprisingly, Nobody Does! Survival Instincts put all Energy into the Good of the Fight. In my youth I was quite a Dare Devil, and had gotten into some very serious Safety Scrapes. Afterward, I might be angry with myself for trying This or That Stupidly Dangerous Thing, but AT THE TIME where one’s Life is in the Balance, adrenaline is Finally in its Proper Niche, and it Sharpens the Focus. Surprisingly, considering one is under So Much Pressure (Life or Death), every Move One Makes is precise, well carried out, and Exactly the Correct thing to do. Or maybe I have just been Lucky… lucky… lucky…
But you Still have a bit of a Marginal Anger Problem. Yes, your Anger occurs seldom enough that the people you work with are not Afraid to be around you. That is Good. What is Bad is that several times a year, or so, you hear or experience something you don’t like (a Challenge to your Reputation’s ‘Territory’, in most cases) and you Treat Everybody to a Grand Dramatic Scene. Wouldn’t That tend to make people tense up around you. You are not Fun or Pleasant when you are Spouting Off about how Cruelly and Unjustly you’ve been Used. If would be Better if You could Meet Every Situation with a Calm and Nonchalant Voice. For instance, those Customers who accuse You of misrepresenting your Product or Service. You could hear the Accusation, and then pause and think for a moment, and then calmly say “Oh! I think I might have figured out what happened -- the Client’s Boss probably Jumped Him for Buying the Wrong Thing (or requesting the Wrong Service), and to Save his Own Skin, decided to Toss Me Under the Bus … Who KNOWS what pressures that Poor Devil was under… BUT, that Guy Definitely owes me a Big Favor.” Wow! That would be a GREAT WAY to react, rather than by Defending your Judgement, Integrity, and Competence… ALL OF WHICH you should Assume that Nobody holds in the least bit of Doubt.
Anyway, Once you become Aware of the Unpleasantness and Non-Necessity of EVER getting Angry At Work, I don’t have a concern in the World that a man of your capabilities won’t Fix that Problem (more on that below). HOWEVER, your Wife is a Very Complicated Issue…. The Primary Reason I wanted you to just Pick up and Run… and avoid the Whole Nasty Can of Worms of having to Deal with Her.
Have you ever read Jane Austin’s “Pride and Prejudice”? A Wonderful Book. But what made me Think of it in This Application was the Behavior of the ‘Girl’s’ Father towards the Mother. The Father (Mr. Bennet, I believe) was a Very Sensible Man with Impeccable Integrity. His Wife was a very Talkative Fool. It became Clear as the Story Progressed that Mr. Bennet was ignoring everything his Wife Said… wasn’t Investing in Any of That At All. Of course it was Kind of Her not to Insist on his Responding and forcing Confrontations. BUT, would your Wife Let You Get Away with “YES DEARing” everything she says. For instance, she says “You always neglect me and you have no clue about my special needs, and I should have married Ralph instead of you…” And you say “Yes Dear”. Have you Tried It? You’ve been Talking to Her and Trying to Communicate with Her for your Entire Marriage, and we can see how that has been working out for you. And, yes, of course, you are doing the Right Thing, but you need to find something that Works, and which ISN’T explicitly Evil. What Good is Good if it has no Effect. Doing Good may leave you Morally Blameless, but you are a Businessman. A New Associate may be technically Blameless, at the Moral Level, for failures of Correct Discernment, which causes him to bypass Opportunities or to invite in Attractive Disasters, BUT being Blameless is not the Only thing. One must Balance Blame with Success. After all, what good does it do to complain that Losing One’s Business was not one’s Own Fault. It’s Understood that good Business Men must See Things Coming, both Good and Bad, and then be Light Enough on their Feet to Handle It. Well, Marriage isn’t Business… or maybe we think that it shouldn’t be, but the point still holds, that one cannot simply Ignore Results.
Anyway, if you DO start effectively ignoring Her, certainly NEVER admit to it. Answer everything in the least number of words possible, and be sure to call her Dear or Darling, which she might find extremely annoying, but people would find it very odd if she should List It as one of her Complaints. Oh, when she has been Drinking, say something like “Dearest, you’ve said yourself that it does no good to talk once you’ve been drinking, so can we pick this back up tomorrow?” If she says “BUT I NEVER SAID THAT!”. Well, the answer to that is, “Well, I guess when you said it you were drinking and can’t remember”… NO! that is another one of my Amusing Tricks, BUT, you should insist on not talking when Drinking. And in other cases, where your Wife wants to continue a Conversation past your few carefully chosen words, well, something like this might work -- “Darling, I see that this is very important to you, but, I simply have so much Business to attend to. Could we Pick it back up Later”, and then excuse yourself and go to your Study.
Oh, Dear! You DO have a Private Study don’t you? Every Man should. If you don’t ‘study’ then you can call it your Workshop, Office or Studio. One of the most endearing memories of my father was when I had gotten wrestles in the house doing nothing, and I heard all kinds of power tools going in the Garage. So I went out to see if I could be of any Help. Yes, the Tools were going, but my father was sitting back reading a book! He confessed that I had ‘caught him’, that often he uses the Excuse of Working In the Garage for no other purpose then to secure some Peace and Quiet (even with a Buzz Saw roaring several inches from his elbow) . Anyway the One Big Rule about Private Studies is that NOBODY gets to walk into your Study (library, studio,office, workshop, or whatever). A Charming Observation in regards to that book I mentioned, “Pride and Prejudice” was that Mr. Bennet allowed One Exception to the inviolable Privacy of his Study, and that was in regards to his Daughter Elizabeth… the Hero of the Book… a heart-warming exception.
Well, enough Ad Hoc Advice. Time for Generically Good Advice. Go over the Reviews for the available Anger Management Books and start with a few you like. (I like “Anger Management” by Peter Favaro because it is relatively complete and very well organized, and the books by Potter-Efron, who has written quite a few on Anger and they all come across as very insightful and helpful). Basically, you NEED books that will keep feeding you Ideas on Anger Management. You are Very Intelligent. I doubt that anybody could tell you anything that you did not already know SOMETHING about, BUT you need some Regularly Scheduled Device to Keep your Attention Focused, for a dedicated Time Slot Every Day, on Contemplating the Hows and Whys of Anger Management. And Every Good and Thoughtful Author in the Anger Management Field has a few Good Ideas – a few ‘Neat Tricks’. Oh, if I were to write a Book, one piece of Advice would be Prominent, and that is that MOST Anger Explosion Episodes are propelled by Adrenaline. Adrenaline Kicks in Very Fast, but NOT instantaneously. You have a bit longer than a Single Second to Shut Down an Adrenaline Reaction. So you HAVE TO be able to Identify Your Very First Adrenaline Twitch, in order to you have the necessary time to just WILL the rest of the Adrenaline Reaction Away (which is as easy as just making a Quick Mental Veto of it). For myself, the First Sign of Adrenaline is that my Jaw Tightens… my teeth clench. I have conditioned myself to effectively Freeze whenever that happens, and it has kept me out of a lot of trouble. Also, I have 4 sometimes Very Naughty Kitty Cats, and my Device for Refraining from Anger has come to Their Aid perhaps Hundreds of times.
This Post is dragging on and on. So, let’s give it a rest, and see what you think…