Converting anger into a positive emotion

‘welf aqhjbkfedsOZLY&UHICsd kflvjhzdsf khjlzv’, I smashed the keyboard as hard I could. When I couldn’t bash it any harder I picked up an object and smashed it again. I was pissed off and I was about 6 years old. Keys actually flew out of the keyboard. I had broken my first keyboard out of rage. I was angry because I probably died way too many times in a game I can’t remember anymore. Back then games were hard and you died frequently. Keyboards were also expensive back in the 1980s. They were mechanical keyboards and cost around $100. I didn’t know then and I didn’t care until my parents came home and my dad was really angry (which was pretty rare).

Which leads me to ponder another question.

Was it nature or nurture that I was this way?

Who else would break a keyboard at 6? And why the hell was my rage so uncontrollable?

I largely suspect it was nurture based on my observation that my parents and some of my sisters exhibit impatience and quick rage. I probably observed their behavior as young as I was and internalized it and made it a core response without knowing it.

This wasn’t my first keyboard I broke either. I broke another after having promised my parents I’d never do that again at an age I can’t remember and then broke a 3rd when I was 29 I think, playing an online golf game (Pangya). I had missed way too many times on the timing because the computer hiccupped and the animation jolted which resulted in me missing the timing and then wanting to break something. Which I did with my $80 Microsoft Sidewinder keyboard resulting in shredded rubber domes (internal parts).

I only stopped destroying keyboards when I finally bought a $200 keyboard with which I had an interesting reaction. My hand stopped in mid-air as I was about to smash it again for the same reason as last time and somehow sanity caught up with me and my emotional brain and my rational brain agreed that we didn’t have the money to keep smashing expensive keyboards. Especially an overpriced mechanical keyboard that I was coveting for the last few months.

I was a rager, and a violent rager at that. I never hit anyone but damn I hit my keyboard.

Managing my anger was something I knew had to be fixed but I wasn’t quite sure how.

I tried a lot of different things to calm myself down or use emotional suppression to clear it. I wasn’t really satisfied with any of those techniques and it was only around the last 5 years I tried to do something different. I told myself if I get super angry again I’m going to force myself to do something positive in exchange. Because the worst thing about breaking keyboards after raging, was the amount of regret after calming down.

Anger is really interesting to me. It motivates me to do something I wouldn’t normally do. Surely there had to be a way to harness that right? So one day after I got super mad at myself I decided there’s been enough destruction I need to do something else. I decided to be productive by going out to exercise. I just forced myself to walk / run until I cleared up and then I could feel ok about all of that since I came home and did something positive at least. This worked out pretty good. After doing this repeatedly as a reaction I got kind of used to it. So I decided that from here on I’d try something different. And over time I noticed that because I was using so much emotional override to change what I’d do after I get angry I started getting more control during rage.

An interesting thing happened and now I noticed I can actually be self-aware that I’m being irrational while I’m angry.

In yelling matches and fights with people close to me I’ve been able to do something that I thought was pretty rare. I could actually admit I was wrong while fighting with someone because I somehow gained awareness and control of my rational mind during the fight. It’s weird and very cool at the same time (very proud of myself).

And I’m pretty certain it was only possible because I actually tried to override my anger so much in the last 5 years.

Over the next few years I was able to use it for good again. My awesome senior I mentioned in this article pissed me off. Actually we pissed each other off really bad. I heard later he wanted to quit because of me (that would’ve been really regretful). I fantasized all day about quitting too and saying what I wanted to say in some finale blasting episode. But nope that didn’t happen and I had just enough sanity to at least do what was right for me. I sat in my chair at the office and I worked harder. Because I was angry. I played music really loud in my ears, drowned the world out so I could give 100% focus on my task. Amazing what anger can do for motivation if it’s directed somewhere good. I think I got over the incident after a few days. I remember thinking to myself the best thing I can do from here on is to self improve. Program better, focus on just improving so far that if I did get fired or if I quit over an incident like this I would be so much better off. And that’s what kept me going and kept me strong as I furiously typed away my solutions.

So yeah this is what I’d call efficient anger management. I only had one more angry episode later that wasn’t quite as epic where I reacted in a similar vein (furiously programming answers). I grew a lot at that company and I definitely grew more because of my way of anger management.