anger management...

we've already discussed that i don't really do a ton of editing after i write one of these right? maybe i'll see a glaring spelling/grammatical error and have to correct it, but that's about it. well, this should come as no surprise either. while i might have a lot of ideas kick off during the day and say "hey, that'd be a great thing to write about", i don't really put a lot of effort into these before hand either. no outlines, no multiple drafts... so when i start talking about one thing and finish talking about another? i apologize. dunno if that's going to happen here, but if it does? whoops. my bad.

once upon a time, i was a young, dumb private. i finished basic, a.i.t. and jump school. i showed up at ft. bragg, excited to get to my first unit and really see what the army was like. not too long before i got there bad things happened at bragg. a guy went nutso and started shooting at other soldiers early one morning while they were doing phyiscal training. another guy went nutso and killed a couple walking downtown. everyonce in awhile people crack there. think of it as the hellmouth without the supernatural. so i got there and i was just doing my normal stuff. which includes not sleeping. i've always had a problem falling asleep. once i'm asleep, i'll sleep all night long, and good luck trying to wake me up to get to work on time. but i can't shut my brain off. well my roommate was the complete opposite. he'd stay awake long enough to talk to his girlfriend, and then he was crashing. well, he'd wake up to go to the bathroom or whatever and i'd still be awake. then he'd wake up again, and yup. still awake. but then i'd want to nap all day. so he mentioned it in passing to our boss. well, since the other crazies had decided to do the crazy thing, if you acted the slightest bit weird, you were automatically sent in for a mental evaluation. this was considered weird. next thing i know i'm being driven to the mental health clinic (not because i needed to be restrained or anything. just because i didn't have a car yet.) so then all of a sudden, they automatically decided that i must be repressing anger and that's why i can't sleep. next thing i know, i'm enrolled in an anger management class.

now, let's be honest. we've all got issues. me? i avoid confrontation like a mo-fo. nowhere near as bad as i used to, thank the army, but i do it. and i suppose that might lead to some pent up frustrations. i don't deal with a problem when it's little, and then it's big, and then it's too late. but i have PLENTY of coping mechanisms. what i'm saying is, i really didn't need anger management classes. i'm not saying i'm perfect, but i'm fairly normal. i'm really a pretty level guy. so i show up for the first class and we get to go around the circle and explain why we're there. this guy threw his roommate out a third floor window. this guy beat his supervisor so bad he was in a coma for three days, this guy beat his wife and kids, this guy purposely rammed his car into the car of the guy who did something bad to him... and me. i don't fall asleep until past midnight. boy. i sure fit in.

so. funny thing is, guess who actually listens in class and gets something from it? i know several of those other guys got thrown out of the military for bad things, i know one got locked up. be me, i'm constantly remembering things we learned in that class. and using them on people. doesn't always make you popular in an argument. heh. one of the big things they talked about was how 99% of the things that we take personally that someone did to us, weren't done with malicious intent. "you made me feel so angry!" well, no. they didn't. they just did what they did, probably without considering us or our feelings at all. the fact that we feel hurt or sad or angry or whatever is just the way we interpret their actions. there's a sign that says something like "no one can make you feel incompetent (or stupid, or whatever) without your permission, you'd be stupid not to give that permission to your drill sergeant".

some people don't get this. another example of it is something i heard on npr. a salesperson was talking. he said that the golden rule is wrong. it shouldn't be "do unto others as you would have done to yourself", it should be "do unto others as they would have done to themselves". basically saying that because we all come from different backgrounds, different beliefs, values, etc. our perspectives are all different. to be successful at sales, don't treat the customer as you'd want to be treated. treat the customer how they want to be treated. i call these things leaps in logic. i'm not saying someone is illogical when i'm having an argument with them. they're just being logical in their head. i'm being logical in mine. but there is a leap to get from their logic to mine or vice-versa, and we can't always make that leap. now in reality, that's probably more of an emotional leap, but... don't look at it through your eyes, found out about them and try your best to look at it through their eyes, with their perceptions and beliefs and values and biases. A lot of arguments come from that. we're saying something the way we mean it, and the person we're talking to isn't hearing that. they're putting the spin of their past on what we're saying and that's what they're hearing. the telephone game.

once upon a time there was me and a girl. she wanted to go for a motorcycle ride, i wanted to as well. this story and the next kinda are meant to show the dangers of trying to get into that other person's head. away we go. it was a cold night. i was wearing a sweat shirt with hand warmer pockets, she had no gloves. i told her she could put her arms around my waist and her hands in the pockets. next thing i know her hands feel like she's groping me. but no. that can't be. she's sweet and innocent. can't be! and to this day i firmly believe she was unaware. nothing was mentioned. hard to describe this girl. she was just everybody's little sister. always went to church on sundays, religious ed classes wednesday nights after work, etc. and she was morman and i wasn't. so she definitely wasn't hitting on me. but she was. she wrote an email a couple years back saying she’d been hurt when i didn’t return her advances.

today there's another girl and me and 3 other people going for a ride in a truck. other girl is wearing shorts. she sits in the front between me and one other person, while the other two are in the back with this large piece of equipment. as i'm driving i'm constantly brushing up against her legs while shifting the car. her arm goes around me, she leans into me during all the turns. as i later find out, she had had a relationship with another member of the unit, and some video of the two of them got out and lots of people saw it. apparently she's quite adventurous. so everyone else in the vehicle is sure she's got her sights set on me now, based on this totally unplanned car ride. i'm convinced nothing was going on with this girl either. she didn't plan to sit next to me that close, she didn't know that other person was going to jump into the front seat at the last minute. and sure, she leaned into me when we turned in the one direction. but guess what? she leaned away from me when we turned in the other. but it's funny how if i wanted to try to get into her head based on what people have told me about her i could get carried away and really fool myself into thinking there was something there when there's not. and treat her wrong based on those poor assumptions. and make a total ass of myself in the process.

once upon a time there was me and a girl. the girl wanted a new car. she was sick of the used cars that had broken down a time or two. didn't see the value in not having to make a car payment, etc. i mentioned that a new car was no guarantee that break downs wouldn't happen and pointed to a mutual friend as an example. he had bought a brand new car less than a year before and had already been stranded twice by it. i said the only guarantee to not have a car break down was to walk. i have NO idea what it was about her past, but she received that as me telling her to walk, that she wasn't worth the money it would cost to buy a new car. it's amazing more guys and girls don't kill one another.