“Anger is one letter short of danger”

I was looking at the handouts from the conference I attended last week; under the topic 'How to be a Skillful Communicator', there is a subtopic 'Remove Distractions', which says, ‘Try avoid doodling when you are told to listen’ and aptly on the same page, I saw this:

Yes, I doodled the face of the speaker. When I was told not to doodle and just listen. Obviously I was not listening. Kah kah. In my defense, I love to doodle (is that a valid defense?!)

Anyways, the speaker also talked about the Chain of Anger (I listened to this because it was interesting! And I thought I’d share with you guys) Example of chain: Son wakes up to find his favourite toy missing. He screamed at his mom demanding for his toy. Mom felt annoyed and exchanged harsh words with dad and sent him off to work with a sad face. Dad, bad mood and all, went to work and scolded his secretary for the tiniest mistake. Secretary picked up his foul mood and scolded her assistant for another mistake and the assistant resigned. Dad, affected by the resignation, went home even more pissed off. Saw his son’s toy on the driveway and screamed at him and the son cried and screamed at his mom.

And the Chain of Anger begins again and again and again.

What can instead be done? Be the one who breaks the chain. So you’re the mom? Help your son to find his toy or tell him to be patient and search for it together. So you’re the dad? Help your wife find the missing toy, or simply coax her with sweet words. You’re the secretary/assistant? Brush off your superior’s rude remarks with your positive attitude and let it go. Easier said than done though. We’re only human. We get angry, pissed off, annoyed.

But yeah, the world would definitely be a better place if everybody would try to be the one who breaks the chain of anger. Anger is an awful, awful emotion. Common, but very awful. And like flu and fear and every negative thing there is, anger is contagious. Contagious and awful, yikes! So this new (hijrah) year, I vow to always TRY to be the one who breaks the Chain of Anger. Semoga tahun ini lebih baik dari sebelumnya insyaAllah!


To wrap up the (hijrah) year, the little superhero would like to wish uncles and aunties:

Garang kan muka superhero? Takut ke tak?!