Written by Single dads, you know this feeling well. I was overcome by a series of unfortunate events, and they kept hammering me through the day. At first, I truly thought the world was against me. I soon saw a homeless man being harassed by a security guard and realized that everybody has problems, and they are not unique to me. It takes stepping out of your personal dilemma for a moment to see this. As I paid more attention, I noticed a cashier being lambasted by a patron at the Hobby Lobby store, that’s when I settled down and realized that anybody can get it. Although I was pissed because initially the UBER I took dropped me off almost a ½ mile from my stop, I realized that I could use the exercise.
I took that “L” but when the request for a tip and rating came up, I exacted some revenge. It felt good at the time. Some situations demand that you commit to a recourse to action. Since I couldn’t say anything to the UBER driver because he was long gone (and it was good because I was pissed off), I did what I could to address my anger. As I began to walk, my anger lowered and my desire to get to my destination took over. Redirecting your anger to address another matter provides strength. I got to my destination in a timely fashion, and again, it gave me the opportunity to witness other people and the challenges they go through. It changed my perspective. In essence, the mishap I encountered opened an opportunity. That opportunity is this blog post. There are many reasons why re-channeling your anger is beneficial–for example:
- It lowers stress levels.
- Not doing so can damage your heart and cardiovascular system.
- It reduces anxiety.
At the FedEx, where I had to go, I met some very nice people who were helpful. I forgot to print my label, and the manager said, “No problem, just forward the email and we will print it for you. The lady at the counter was also cool. Her professional demeanor was very comforting. It took a little while, but I was OK with that because they were doing me a favor. Amid the hustle and bustle of the FedEx, the employees kept their heads and still found the time to offer me service. To me, it showed that attitude is everything. Whether they enjoyed their jobs or not, they maintained an up-tempo tone that made the entire place come alive.
The way you see it matters
This ties directly into single fathering because we are subjected to so many outside circumstances like everyone else on our day to day. Personalizing it only makes the matter worse and causes a single father undue frustration. We sometimes begin to foreshadow a belief that everything is going to go wrong. Subsequently, we may make the mistake of taking our hard days out on the ones we love.
When you make the choice (and it’s a hard choice) to not make it all about you, then you immediately turn a problem-plagued circumstance into a solution-oriented thought process. This does not mean that problems will not persist, but it does change the way we see them. For me, the drama did not end after my good feelings at the FedEx. I had to get another UBER, and I ended up waiting an hour until a driver came. By that time, my phone was almost out of power, and UBER kept sending driver cancellation alerts. Man, I was pissed, but each alert also came with a decrease in price. Again, it is the way you chose to see it. I can be upset over the waiting period or happy that I saved money on an UBER. I chose the latter because it gave me time to write my preliminary article. I say preliminary, and you will see why in a few.
The fact that I decided to take the onus off myself and focus on channeling my negative feelings and energies into something else allowed me to start working on a post. My initial post was about learning to see things from other people’s eyes, because it is valuable for a single father to understand. When we put ourselves in other people’s shoes, it gives us a moment of clarity. It’s like that Gandhi quote, “I cried because I had no shoes, and then I met a man that had no feet.” Perspective builds understanding. and that’s why this post has morphed into a post that speaks about being grateful, even during hard times.
Being grateful under any condition
I went back into the FedEx to see if one of the employees had an iPhone charger, but no luck. I was stuck with having to buy one, or so I thought. One of the customers said, “I have an extra, and you can have it. You don’t need to buy one.” I thought that would have ticked off the manager, but he said, “If you don’t have to buy one, then it works out.” I realized his words rang a hint of truth.
Ways to re-channel your anger
- Use anger as a source of motivation.
- Control the emotion through logic and reason.
- Focus on what truly matters in the grand scheme of things.
- Exercise
- Channel negative energy into productive action.
Feeding into your anger can be dangerous
I finally got an UBER driver, and he was very friendly. It calmed me down and I started to finish my article on my phone. It was a win/win, or so I thought. Yesterday, I was almost finished with that post, when I realized that I did not save it on my phone. Here is where I could choose to be angry, or I can look at it as another opportunity. It has become the latter of choice because it is letting me create a post based on immediate feelings.
Those feeling became the decision to create action. Sure, I was bummed out that I had to rewrite, but this version has more substance, and I know it will resonate to my single father community. Learning to not personalize circumstance, let incident run off you like water in a ducks back, and to re-channel negative energy, are all things single fathers must do, because we are confronted with a cadre of events on the daily.
Choosing to feed into the anger puts us out of control. When that happens, it makes thinking properly difficult. We go into fight or flight mode and let the brain take over. Letting the brain control you blindly is like having an out-of-body experience. You know it is you, but you can’t believe you are doing it. Single fathers don’t let this happen, because like I said, it can affect the people we love.
Taking your thoughts back from anger, means that you are taking control over challenging circumstances. You also use angers negative energy to your advantage by transforming it to your advantage. When you now that you have the ability to do this in other circumstances, when faced with a situation at home, you can think about how you handled prior issues and instead of getting upset over it, you can choose to redirect it, using it to your advantage.