By Michelle Witte
I?ve been angry lately ? unreasonably angry. This isn?t the kind of trifling upset you see when someone doesn?t get what they want; it?s more of a pent-up rage that blows stronger than Vesuvius.
Each of my outbursts has become more vehement with time. The mildly irritating woman who complained to me on the phone elicited a swift response from my poisonous tongue. The old man blocking traffic while he backed up his car received a honk from my horn and several choice remarks.
I hadn?t realized the intensity of my anger until recently when I berated a booter at the top of my lungs. Although I felt justified with my strong outburst because he unfairly booted me, resulting in a $60 fine, I?m not sure the neighbors two blocks away appreciated the violent insults they heard yelled through the otherwise-silent night.
Although booters will probably never earn my full sympathy, I?ve come to realize they don?t exactly deserve to be so thoroughly abused to their faces.
Unfortunately I?ve noticed anger management issues like mine are frighteningly more common than they should be, especially in Provo. Despite the apparent road rage and other openly hostile acts of aggression, I?ve noticed the increase in strong emotions and unkind words in everyday situations.
People complain about bad drivers, they complain about PDA, they complain about their teachers and pretty much everything under the sun that irritates them. But rarely do they complain about their own behavior when they do something that might offend others.
The letters to the editor at The Daily Universe are the perfect example. Rarely do we see a kind word about the many people who patiently wait in their cars for pedestrians to cross the street. Instead we read a letter from students angry who had to wait a few seconds for traffic to stop or upset they almost died because they dashed in front of a moving car.
Even the usually blissful act of sharing an affectionate moment with a loved one has resulted in furious diatribes from students across campus. Although I agree that some couples get a little too frisky out in public, most of the complaints have reached the point of becoming more obscene than the acts that started the tirades.
And my favorite responses come from students outraged that The Daily Universe, a newspaper whose reporters are unpaid, overworked students who receive a grade for the class and unkind remarks from the general public.
Yes, I know we make frequent mistakes ? none of us are perfect, but neither are you.
I?ve slowly realized it?s best to ignore the things you can?t control, won?t kill you and won?t damage your eternal salvation. In other words, the student population at BYU needs to take a chill pill, as my younger brothers used to tell me. Relax and appreciate the tulips like one enlightened student who wrote to the editor several weeks ago.
Instead of laying blame on someone else for something that just doesn?t matter in the long run, maybe we should admit that all of us have faults and learn to love people for being the flawed, imperfect beings we all are.
Looking back, I must admit that in nearly all of the circumstances where I became unreasonably angry, I either held some of the blame for the situation or could have shown more patience and charity to someone who might have needed help.
So after some overdue introspection, I?ve decided to focus more on making myself a better person by not worrying so much about the annoying things in life and look on the sunny side for once. I?ll be a much happier, and less angry, person.