Was it worth it?

A short fuse.. is what I was built with. God created me that way.

I've blown up a few times.. badly. Said things in anger, that I regretted later. Done things in anger that people have seen only happen in movies.

One evening, back in October 2001, I decided to change that. It was on that day that I regretted something I said much more than any other times before. From that point of time, I wanted to be someone different. I wanted to be someone with a lot of patience.. someone who wasn't reactive... someone who wasn't blowing up at the slightest of provocation.. someone who didn't lose words easily.

It was a lot of hard work from that day. Every day, every minute, every second I had to work on it. Very consciously. Very deliberately.

I learnt to slow down my speech. I learnt to take a few seconds to think about what I wanted to say. I forced myself to look at things from the other person's point of view. I taught myself to think about how the other person would feel if I said something. I put rules in my head about what I would allow myself to say, and more importantly what I would never say in any situation. If it ever got to the point where I was going to blow up, I told myself I would walk away from the scene. I played past experiences over and over again in my mind. Ones where I blew up, and things went down hill. I visualized myself walking away from such a situation were it to happen again... when my blood is boiling, and when my head is feeling like it is going to explode if I don't say something, or if I don't act.

Many times since that evening, I've been angered. I've felt like I was going to explode if I didn't act. That part, I couldn't stop. Even if I worked on it a million more years, I don't think I can ever stop feeling those emotions. But what I managed to do, was watch the way I acted on those emotions. I have raised my voice in anger, but managed not to spill unnecessary words. I managed to never say anything more than what was needed to convey the emotion.

It is like this.. there is this person I want to be.. and then there is me.. and everyday is a constant struggle to get to this person I want to be. A struggle that I have waged with reasonable success for the last 7 and a half years.

And then 4 days ago.. after years of taking baby steps in the right direction, I let myself down. Someone managed to break me. Someone who I considered a very close friend hurt me so much, that my resolve broke down. It was the same feeling of my blood boiling.. the same feeling of my head blowing. My head pounding on me to react and retaliate.. my senses telling me to not take it standing silent.. my feelings telling me to be a man and have some balls to give it right back.. How could someone be SO inconsiderate and selfish? How could someone so lack any sort of respect for me or my feelings?

In the heat of the moment, I cursed that person. I regretted it an instant later. Yes, sure, it felt good for a few seconds. It felt like I was giving it back. It felt like I finally did what that person deserved.

But, was it worth it? Was it worth 7 and a half years of progress that I made? Was I proud of the fact that I did something I've never done before? Was this person even worth my anger? Was this person even worth giving up on my principles?

No!

All I had to do, was get up, and leave. Walk away from that situation. Not spend an instant more on worthless things. What goes around, comes around. I don' t have to be the one doling it out! If someone stooped to low levels, did I have to go down to that level too?

I shall not forget the 15th of June. A lesson learnt for life! ....hopefully....

My journey starts again. Journey to do what it takes to be that person I want to be.