Trigger Happy Rational

I have a short fuse.

For as long as I can remember, I've always had problems in dealing with and controlling that particular volatile emotion. When I was but a young'un, the way I dealt with it was pretty simple: I got angry, I exchanged words, I got into fights and more often than not, I would get disciplined in school for it (the majority of my tantrums/fights took place in school).

As I grew older, the way I dealt with that volatile emotion also changed. I stopped getting into fights and instead started destroying inanimate objects and certain body parts. As for the exchanging of unpleasantries, well that basically regressed. Instead of shooting my mouth off with select adjectives, I chose to shoot from the lip with personal attacks.

Suffice to say that soon created its own special brand of problems, primarily in the form of damaged relationships with friends and co-workers.

Another bad side effect of having a short fuse is that I've made a few bad decisions in the immediate aftermath of blowing my fuse. Some I've been able to fix and some, unfortunately, have not.

Which brings me to the present.

In the here and now, because it usually takes me about two to three days to calm down to the point where I can think with the normal amount of clarity that I pride myself on, I've developed and put into place a series of mechanisms that were designed explicitly to neutralize and block those unsavory portions of me that I'm not overly fond of.

Mechanism #1 is the silent treatment. Yeah, you read right. Depending on when my fuse initially detonated, I'll spend the rest of that day hiding in my cube, doing whatever work that needs to get done and whatever work that doesn't need to get done. I'm still polite to my co-workers if they initiate the contact, but for the most part, I stay well hidden.

Mechanism #2 is computer talk. I like to talk to my computer (doesn't everyone?), especially when I'm in this particular frame of mind. I don't tolerate stupid to begin with, so I have a tendency to shoot my mouth off while I'm politely responding to an e-mail. Makes me feel better and it gives my co-workers a chuckle and makes them say, "There goes G again talking to his computer."

Those are the two basic mechanisms that I use in the real world as it applies to work (and no, I will not tell you what I do at home, because home is the direct cause of about 98% of this shit to begin with). The cyber world is a bit more difficult and lot more dangerous, sort of like walking through a convention of MoveOn.org members and saying, "George Bush is my hero."

Because of the instantaneous nature of pressing the enter key, the mechanism that I have in place is pretty simple.

Do nothing.

I don't troll on Facebook (can pick a fight too easily); I don't respond to my e-mail (can too easily pick a fight where there isn't one to pick); and as you can see by Wednesday's post, I don't blog.

Yup, the one other problem that developed from my short fuse, is that I now have an inability to either blog or write coherantly when I'm this angry. The writing lesson was learned back in 2006 when a few of my former co-workers read the rough draft of my first self-pubbed novel and said I had a phenomenal amount of anger emitting from it. As for blogging, it's just a natural extension of the overall issue of writing.

So whenever you see a blog post like last Wednesday pop up in your reader or on the screen, just remember its only me protecting you from me.

Because in the end, isn't it better to become upset with me in a good natured way and remain friends, than to become collateral damage through 0% fault on your part and 100% on me?