Growls

I felt consumed by anger all day today, no matter what I tried to do to rid myself of the feeling. First, I was cross with Reggie, who gave me a leadership contest on the way to work. I immediately became the authoritative master - not relenting until the end of the afternoon - delivering crisp commands and demanding immediate obedience.

I was then cross with a client for leaving a message to which I had no time to respond, requesting a later appointment on a day when I had everything tightly scheduled, with his appointment first. I was then cross with myself for not finding a software program I needed for an afternoon appointment I knew would be difficult. All-in-all, I wasn't tracking smoothly, and I failed to stop and take time to discover what issue may have been the real source for my frustration.

Anger with Reggie bubbled up all day. It was a control issue, and like most control issues, I had to realize and accept that I was the one responsible, not Reggie. I had unwittingly done something in a way that led him to have unwarranted expectations. A "brilliant" idea of mine had gone awry and now bad patterning was occurring to mar his usual attentive performance. His attention was now so much on reward that he was totally ignoring his task whenever we reached a curb.

We fixed it, but I never took the chance to laugh at myself for making such a mess of things – I just demanded perfect performance from Reggie. Fortunately, I kept my temper, and fortunately, he was spot on in his performance once he got things back in balance with better leadership from me.

I adjusted my schedule to compensate for the client's wish for a later appointment, leaving him a message to confirm an early afternoon time. He never called back, and though I realized early on that my morning schedule and then even my afternoon one were much easier without seeing him, I still growled about it to my work colleagues whenever I got the chance.

I found the software still in the computer CD drive where I had last used it. Fortunately in this instance I was just so glad to have discovered it that I felt a little relief.

That afternoon, I met with an elderly client and his wife, both of whom I knew could get into difficulties and misunderstandings with each other over things that concern them. They are both highly intelligent and also intense – nothing like Ruth and me of course, especially not in being old! I advised the gentleman to try to work patiently with this new equipment and not lose his temper. His response was, "I never lose my temper!" and his wife started in on a lecture about the destructive nature of anger. I finally got an inner laugh at least, mostly at myself. It felt good to tell them I certainly did lose my temper!

Returning to the office, I blasted off a cryptic e-mail to my program director for unfairly criticizing one of my employees. At least I felt I could give some self-righteous growls here, but somehow I remained unconvinced the excuse was sufficient.

I came home to growl about a neighbor who is again refusing to pick up after her cute border-collie puppy, trying to slip the puppy out at night and early morning when she thinks no one notices. Even more than that, she is also trying to fool the absentee owner of her apartment and everyone else that she has no dog there at all. My rational for anger here was what I considered her dishonesty, not to mention my concern that Reggie might consume some of these daily tidbits if I failed to notice. I wonder though whether I was perhaps begrudging the discipline of being honest and of always, without exception, picking up after Reggie no matter what the circumstance.

Before going to bed tonight, I finally gave myself time to ask what the trouble really was. A little voice inside said it was because I had given myself no time to write for the past two days. I growled, "Well, I've had to work for the past two days and I haven't had time! – You know I like to write in the morning, but I also need some sleep!" Then, when the voice persisted I said, "OK, I'll get up early and write tomorrow morning!"

Then I couldn't sleep. My stomach felt tight and my legs were restless. I thought, "there's nothing here that a good love session wouldn't cure!" - but it seemed unfair to awaken the sleeping beauty beside me. I felt sure to be considered worse than a frog if I did. I got up and ate some peanut butter with a spoon instead. Well, that was good! Then I sat down at the computer to see how it would work to publish a blog post directly from MS Word. Title: "New Post," message text: "Test message." Low and behold, it worked like a charm!

Then the voice said, "OK, sucker, why not just sit there and write about being angry all day! So I did, and now I feel much better.

Good Night!