One of the biggest challenges for me in being in Bangladesh is anger management. You are constantly bombarded by things that are just incredibly frustrating. In the last week alone I can think of 6 things that have made me very angry. When I was a child, I used to go into rages. I'd yell and do things like throw objects at the ground (sometimes breaking them). As I've gotten older I've realized the wisdom there is in controlling your anger through that initial storm of feeling but that isn't to say I'm perfect. I try to forgive when I calm down. I know I need to. Without further ado, the 6 things and my reactions.
1: One of my coworkers tells me about the trouble they are having getting government approval on something because the officials in various places want them to pay bribes. This annoys me so much and it happens everywhere here but I have no face to put on it so it just simmers with resentment inside of me. I take a deep breath and let it go as just something I can't control here.
2: Riding on rickshaw with one of my friends in Dhaka. Our peddler swerves at a young woman for absolutely no reason. He comes with a fraction of an inch of hitting her with a rickshaw axle (which hurts pretty darn bad). Before I know it, I've jabbed the rickshaw driver in the back with my umbrella (briefly forgot I was a pacifist). He turns to look at me and in the moment I realize how stupid I've just been. I apologize to him. Here in my anger I jabbed a poor oppressed guy for nearly hitting a poor oppressed woman. I felt like a real idiot for doing that.
3: Several CNG (local small 3 wheeled taxi) drivers asked for ridiculous prices just because I'm a foreigner at various times this past weekend. I tried to haggle them down or if the price was just way too crazy, I just walked away. I need to remember to not show my frustration with them when haggling. If you act cheerful, they are much more likely to continue bartering with you. If you show your anger in any way, they've won and it is impossible to barter a good price out of them.
4: I got home after a week and a half away to find a huge cockroach staring at me from the top of my bedpost. I grabbed the broom and went ballistic on him. I yelled all sorts of mean things as I repeatedly crushed him with that broom. I then grabbed a can of bug spray and killed a bunch of his family in the kitchen. It was not a good day to be a cockroach in my house. In this situation I was tired from a long week of traveling and realization that I have a lot of house cleaning to do. I still would have killed them regardless because I have guests coming this weekend who have made it very clear that they do not appreciate cockroaches. There was no need for me to do it with the anger with which I did that.
5: Yesterday morning a plan that we had to go to a partner fell apart at last second because one of the guys had to go to a meeting which they were supposed to have finished the previous evening. I got strait up out of my desk chair and went to his boss who had made the decision and we had a discussion about the merits of both decisions. I accepted that he really did need to go to the meeting but voiced my feelings about how I really need him to come on the partner trip. His boss suggested that we postpone our trip by a few hours if we could. After a few minutes of discussion about whether this was possible we arranged for this change. It all worked out fine in the end. I was still annoyed that it had happened but glad a solution could be found.
6: This morning I got up early to come into the office and use Skype to call my family. I've been so busy lately that I haven't had much of a chance to talk to any of them. I have a couple of issues I really need to talk to several people about. Unfortunately, the internet was down at the office and I ended up getting up early for nothing. I tried everything I could to get the internet going again. I was so angry, I slammed my fist down on my desk. This has happened to me several times now in the last couple of months since we switched internet providers. It is so frustrating when I have so little time to squeeze in these calls and just can't manage it. Then I get to thinking about the other things I could be getting done instead during the time that I wasted coming into the office early and that only makes me more upset. It makes me want to yell at my boss for making the decision to switch providers (even though I know and respect why he did that). It makes me want to break down into a fit of throwing things and has me on the verge of tears it is so frustrating. But eventually, I take some time to cool down and realize that stuff happens in life. This is beyond my control. Getting angry does nothing but make me feel terrible. So I calm down and try to forgive myself.
4 comments:
If you can try to remember what is really important and what you can control in those situations. It's not like any of those were like trying to figure out how to change a lightbulb.
Sounds like a man who could use a break. Mom
Taking deep breaths some times help & counting the days till when you are back among family. :)
I understand. For me it's not just one little thing that's to blame, but just a bunch of frustrations all piled into one human heart. For me the breaking point was huge overage charges at the airport and trying to argue my way out of them in Chinese. I don't throw things, I just cry like a little baby. Sometimes deep breaths help, but other times all of the deep breaths in the world just make you want to pass out.
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