I have a bit of a temper, and I always have, but it was particularly bad when I was younger. There were many times when I would hit and kick things in order to get out my frustration. I remember one time during my sophomore year in high school when I was so mad that I actually kicked a hole in the wall. That time the anger started after my mom picked me up from track practice. When I was in school, I had a lot on my plate. I had academic school activities, church activities, basketball, track, and a host of other things to balance with all of the AP and honors classes that I was taking. It stressed me out a lot, and I didn’t always know how to handle it. That day when I kicked the hole in the wall was particularly stressful. I had just finished a two hour practice and then I still had to go home and work on an AP World History project that was due that night. I had barely had enough time to work on it since it had been assigned, so that meant that I had to go home and finish a significant portion of it before the night was through. When my mom came to get me, she said that she wanted to go to a store that was on the way to our house. After saying this, I told her that we couldn’t go because I needed to get back and work on my project. She informed me that it would only take a few minutes, but even though it wouldn’t take long I still started to get annoyed that she wasn’t taking me home right away. Her errand wasn’t a necessity, but my homework was, and I was furious that she was placing her desire to go shopping over my education. She may have only spent about 10 minutes inside, but during that time my anger continued to rise. By the time I got home I had finally reached my peak. I couldn’t yell at my mom (because she probably would’ve killed me), so I did the only thing that I knew how to do. This time was different though because the second my foot connected with the wall I knew that it had caved in. When I looked down, I saw a hole that was roughly the size of my foot. When my dad got home and saw what I had done, he was livid. After he got done yelling at me, I made a decision that I needed to do a better job at controlling my temper.

In this snapshot during my sophomore year in high school, my rage didn’t cause me to hurt anyone with my words (it was just the wall that got a little broken), but can you imagine if I had upset a person instead? Sometimes, you can end up causing emotional damage to other people, and that can be just as hurtful as a physical injury. Whoever came up with the phrase, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” had clearly never experienced the bitter sting of a harsh tongue. Every now and again you can get into an argument with someone, but even after it’s finished you’ll still feel angry. And then next thing you know, you run into somebody else who has nothing to do with the fight that you were having and you take it out on them. You may say you’re sorry and apologize, but there really isn’t any excuse.

Taking out your frustrations and stress on others in your life is not okay positive thinker. Yes, we all have problems but we should try our hardest to deal with those issues with the person who’s responsible for making you feel that way. Day in and day out we have to live in a world where we experience less than favorable events. Sometimes we bring them upon ourselves, but other times things come popping up out of the clear blue sky. We don’t like it when these random bad things happen to us, so we shouldn’t bring uninvited heartache into somebody else’s life. So, if you ever feel like you’re getting ready to take out your anger on some undeserving soul then take a step back. Take a couple of steadying breaths so that you can gain control over the situation again.

Don’t be the type of person to spread negativity into someone’s life who doesn’t deserve it. We have too much negativity in our world, so try some positivity instead!