I Get Mad

Okay, I know I have been gone for awhile, but my world as been on a continuously, sucky path. This is the beginning of day three with me not allowing myself to lose my temper. As it turns out, people have been making me mad, a lot, lately. I’m talking, Yelling, mad. It is a very bad look on me and I’ve decided to over come it. What I am learning is that when I allow other people to make me lose my temper, I give them power over me, and that crap ain’t cool.

Let me give you a little back ground on my temper and when and why I decided that I would not hold in my anger. When I was in my twenties. Around twenty-three or four, I had a job as a Department Assistant at one of our Community Colleges. I worked the evening shift, and was the second in command when the Assistant Register was not at work (and her ass was hardly ever at work). We were having a concurrent registration going on, this particular work week. Just for those of you, who do not know, concurrent registration is when we allowed high school students to register for some college level courses. A wonderful program, I might add.

Well, on this one particular day, there was this Asian man, who was attempting to get his daughter registered for these concurrent classes. Well, they did not have all of the paper work needed to be allowed to register and I had to deny her application. Now, this would not have been that big of a deal, except for the fact that this was the last day of registration.

Well this bastard would not listen to reason, even when I showed him in the catalog why I had to deny his daughter enrollment. I promise you that I went back in forth with this guy for almost an hour, and he would not listen to reason. Plus, he refused to believe that I, a young, black man, had the final say in whether or not his daughter was going to get into college. Needless to say, he was pissing me off, but I was determined to maintain my professionalism. I let him know that I was finished with the conversation and went back to my desk (which, just so happened to be right there near the front counter).

Don’t you know that this bastard continued to badger me, from across the counter. I was hot, but determined not to lose my temper. So, in an attempt to hold back maintain my composure, I decided to practice something that’s I’d head about and seen on television. I decided to count to ten and take a series of calming, deep breaths. Well, as it turned out, I did that shit wrong and I began to hyperventilate. It was a very scary moment and I literally passed out and an ambulance out to the college (This is the moment of our friendship that my buddy Lou likes to tell people about the most.)

After I was revived, I made it up in my mind that I would never hold back my temper again. I decided that it was unhealty for me. So, if someone pushed my buttons to the point that I needed to unleash on them, I would do just that. And I must say, that as a police officer, my verbal anger has served me well. Just the intensity of it makes the public at large think my ass is crazy, and I believe it prevents me from having to lay hands on people, which is a good thing. I ain’t trying to fight nobody, if I can help it.

Anyway, over the past couple of weeks I have decided to rethink my ideas of not holding back my anger. I still believe that it’s okay to get mad, but I should be at a point in my life where I shouldn’t have to get to the degree of anger that I allow myself to yell. The reality is that as a Sergeant, I have a lot of power and that I shouldn’t let my troops make me so mad, to the point that it becomes a shouting match. As soon as I am shooting at them it means that I have lost control and I feel it puts us on an equal playing field. I can not let this happen, ever again.

As far as the public at large is concerned, I am not so sure how my holding back my temper will work. The reality is, that most of the time the show of anger on the street is just an act to gain control over a situation. Let’s face it, my normal speaking voice is not very intimidating at all and neither am I. So, when I have a crowd of twenty to fifty people and I am the first one out, it serves me well to be loud and boisterous. Believe me when I say that I have taken control over a many potentially violent situations by using my words only. It has served me well, on the Department, for ten years now. So, I am afraid that stifling that part of me, on the streets, might just get me seriously hurt. I guess only time will tell. Besides, I know that it is there, if I should need it.

-One Man’s Opinion. Peace.