Muhammad Afzal Ali
Nov 2 · 4 min read

When I was Mad

Imagine a beautiful garden with lush green and exquisite flowers, fresh breeze blowing, bringing along exotic fragrances. All seems perfect. Butterflies flutter around giving out a calm and serene ambiance. From somewhere comes a rat foraging for food unnoticed. The ensuing events are left to the readers imagination. It is suffice to assume the peaceful environment would be disrupted resulting in destruction, disorder and chaos. Such is the state of affairs when the emotion called Anger sets in one’s mind. Immediate action should be taken to eradicate the risk of permanence, as in the case of the rat, the more time the creature spends time in the garden the higher the risk of destruction.

Even though i might not have lost anything of value as yet, i have foregone opportunities to go ahead in my career and life due to my temper. In today’s world where anger is romanticized as a genuine force for good in mainstream media and pop culture, current age youth are diverted from achieving their full potential to grow. What anger does is, it feeds on one’s vulnerability, enticing to lash out and distracting us from seeing clearly as to what is correct . No school or educational institute teaches on how to condition ourselves in these circumstances.

Anger as a emotion is good as it shows that something is wrong in the general scheme of things. But in most cases it is the involvement of other emotions that result in a disastrous situation. Expectations, Depression hurt, anxiety and etc. make a fatal cocktail. I’m no expert or a medical stalwart in this field, but who better to scrutinise the pain than the victim. I embarked on a journey of finding out what are the key triggers that make me mad.

Bear with me if any flaws, as these are my personal experiences in reference to the feeling of Anger.

  • Feeling of being Misunderstood — When a loved one does not understand what I am going through. They might do and say things that makes me more angry. Correlative Emotion: Self Pity
  • Getting Offended Taking everything personal. The feeling that all that happens are somehow related to me, hence requires my opinion it. More the attachments more the chances of things going sour. Correlative Emotion: Ego
  • Expectations — This can work both ways. My expectations and the expectations others have on me. When I expect something from others and they fall short; When others expect something from me and I fall short. Correlative Emotion: Fear, Insecurity
  • Disillusioned of the present — The thought of the past being better than the present makes me dwell in nostalgia, making me start hating the present. Ideal scenario is when I got married. Boy! That was a whole different ball game. Correlative Emotion: Sadness, Nostalgia
  • Ideological Clash — My religion, my beliefs, my culture or my interests need not be the same as the other person. But when two people of diversified ideologies start arguing, the chances of tempers flaring are quite common. Correlative Emotion: Loyalty, Arrogance

The list is not exhaustive and there might be areas which I may have completely ignored.

Now, these triggers are just the tip of the iceberg, and they may vary from person to person, region to region or even season to season.

Some tips to ponder;

  1. Stay grounded — Live in the present, the past is gone, the future is yet to come, now is all we have
  2. Gratitude — being thankful for what you have, things could be much worse.
  3. Forgiveness — Let go, the more you hold on to your anger, the more miserable you become. Forgive for your sake.
  4. Don’t take it personal — Most times it’s not about you, don’t complicate things.
  5. Respect and Empathy — Give space to others thoughts and ideas. Try to see things in different perspectives not only from your personal angle.
  6. Meditate — Shut up and breathe!. Clear your head from thoughts and do nothing.

As a conclusion, one thing is clear. It’s all about one’s state of mind. External factors do have a significant impact but if we are mentally strong enough we can somewhat control our instincts for madness. We are all work in progress, perfection is impossible, especially in anger management.

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