Why Can't I Be My Best Self All the Time?

Why Am I So Angry?

My life’s mantra is “I ain’t never had too much fun!” I want that written on my gravestone, hopefully in the distant future. I live by that mantra by trying to fill my life with fun things to do at home and out in public. I am a karaoke host at a very successful karaoke show on Saturday nights where people are always greeted with a smile and friendly banter. All of my regular singers and friends consider me “a great guy.” I sing duets with many of them and joke around during the shows. I try to sing “entertaining” songs to get a smile or a laugh out of them and I always start out with the song, “I Ain’t Never Had Too Much Fun” by Daryle Singletary to get their (and my) juices flowing. I tell them it’s true, I never HAVE had too much fun, but I plan on coming damn close tonight! I dance around while others are singing and try to welcome and get to know everyone with short conversations while others are singing or before the show starts. I am always “on” and animated when it’s show time. I have so much fun doing the show and it shows! They probably wouldn’t recognize the sometimes moody me if they spent a day or two with me at my home.

I recently retired from teaching, but when I was an active teacher most of my students regarded me as one of their favorite teachers because I always tried to add a little bit (or a ton) of fun into my lessons. I used fun, short clips from videos to teach parts of speech and literary elements. We played games that had English language lessons ingrained in them. I was always “on” and animated when I stood before them in the class, exuding positive energy (almost always). One of my fellow teachers once lamented that she was frustrated with some of our shared students because when I came into class they always saw me as “the fun guy” and she was not held in that regard. Granted, the subject I taught was easier to add in the spice that kept them interested than most other high school teachers being an English as a Second Language (ESL) course designed for newcomers to the United States. The effort the students need to exert that comes with learning the tested subjects like Algebra, Biology, History and English classes wasn’t nearly as intense in my beginners’ classes. Even so, I sometimes got a bit angry with some of them and expressed my anger verbally in an even tone of voice to let them know they were not behaving appropriately. But there were no blow-ups of any kind. I kept an even keel, even when feeling stressed or overtired.

My karaoke audience and my students would be shocked to know that anger is a problem for me. So would my friends and family members be shocked who have never lived with me, or least haven’t lived with me in a long time. Specifically, angry outbursts are a problem I encounter almost daily (sometimes multiple times during the course of a day). I have several triggers and I NEVER get violent towards anyone anymore. For example, when I’m driving my car, whether my wife is with me or not, I yell and cuss and flip the bird to people who are not following highway rules or are cutting me off, or are not extending driving courtesies that I, the great driver that I am, extend to others, like letting me turn left into my neighborhood at a corner that definitely needs a stoplight, but doesn’t. To me, it’s no big deal. I express myself and don’t hold on to any anger. I don’t have “road rage,” so to speak, because road rage makes you do stupid things in reaction to stupid things. My wife gets very upset when I express myself in traffic. For the longest time I just took it for granted that it’s just the way things are. If I’m triggered, I react automatically, without thought, and I’m done with it. I don’t let it linger. It doesn’t seem to affect me much, but it DOES affect my wife and my canine family members. My wife can get literally physically ill, developing stomach issues, muscle spasms, and even sinus infections, when she hears or sees me throw a tantrum. She tenses up in her shoulders, which blocks blood flow to her organs and muscles, and she turns bright red with a rosacea outbreak. That sounds so funny… a 64-year old man throwing what has to be considered a “tantrum,” no matter how brief it may last. I do the same thing at home when I spill something, step on left over dog treats, or trip over an overzealous dog. A quick yell or profanity laced blurt out and done with it… no hard feelings. It amazes me that I don’t have that same automatic reaction when I am out with friends or extended family or strangers in public. My question is why? Why do I react one way in one situation and not in another? Why is my “shadow self” so prevalent in my home surroundings when my “best self” is so dominant in public?

I get angry in many different situations and for many reasons. Is my anger an inherited family trait? Did my father’s father (or mother) have an anger issue he learned his reactions from? Or from one of my “greats?” Was it an issue with any, or many, of them? Is this a generational thing? Is my public persona very different than my private persona because I learned the behavior growing up in a household with an angry man who learned it from an angry parent, who learned it from another relative? Did these people all have fantastic public personas and who never showed the shadow side of their personalities in public? I know my grandpa Jake was a jokester and was very well liked by people in the Garner, Iowa, community. I know he was very strict with my dad, but I don’t know if he had an anger problem per se. I should have asked my dad about it when I had the chance, but he recently passed away and suffered from dementia the past year.

My dad was a “great guy” and very respected by so many people. He accomplished numerous great things while he was alive. I remember good times when we used to travel on family vacations when we were very young. We had great times in swimming pools and going to baseball games together. We had traditions of pizza Chef Boy-R-Dee pizzas on Saturdays and popcorn and apples for supper on Sundays and actually eating in front of the TV together. As we aged the times when we were all together at a dinner table or even in the house grew fewer and farther between. I didn’t notice how he acted towards us when we were in grade school. I started to notice the difference in his behavior as I entered adolescence. I noticed he always loved to have fun with people when he was out in public. I observed and heard from others that he often interjected quips and jokes into his conversations with people he worked with as a math teacher, the students he taught, servers at restaurants, athletes who he was about to engage with as a football and basketball referee, strangers who he had just met, and (later on in life) his grandchildren. He was so different with his grandchildren that didn’t live him than he was with us children who did. Everyone considered him “one of the good ones,” and he was a terrific person when he was out and about. I saw a completely different man when he was out and about than what I saw most of the time at home. Those people probably wouldn’t recognize him if they had to spend a full day or two with him as a family member who lived with him. Sound familiar? Yes, he too, had a problem with anger. He would sometimes get moody and at times when he really got angry, at least with me, he would refuse to talk to me for what seemed like weeks at a time. I asked my mom why he did it and she shrugged her shoulders and told me I was not alone in that kind of treatment. I recently talked with my younger brother about how dad used to turn on the public charm and he agreed how strange it was that his personality could shift so abruptly. I realize I was an extremely defiant teenager (at home with him). I did so many things that must have been disappointing to him that the behavior probably evolved over time. For example, I would break curfews (normal for teens), do a little underaged drinking, resist his efforts to take me (and my brothers) to church, and the biggie… I would choose to stay home during some family vacations and throw wild parties at our house every time they left, even though I kept promising that I wouldn’t “this time.” I know he had a hard time dealing with my teen wildness and that he did the best that he could.

Even back then, out in public I, too, was considered a “great guy” by peers and teachers alike. I worked on the school newspaper and was an editor my senior year, I played varsity sports and lettered two years in three different sports and my teammates are still my “brothers” today. I was even elected to be the student council president my senior year after campaigning at drinking parties all summer and getting to be friendly with students from all the cliques and clubs at our high school. The teachers respected me in my leadership roles and had no idea what a “bad boy” I could be. I presided over school assemblies and read the daily announcements at the end of each school day as previous presidents had traditionally done at Jefferson High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I wrote funny and serious articles for the newspaper and even drew the comic strip for many of the publications. I rarely got angry in public in high school, learning how to control my temper among people outside our home.

I can’t really say if my brothers were in the same boat as me. I saw them blow up only a few times that I remember as we grew up together. On the other hand, they saw me lose my temper over and over again and sometimes suffered the brunt of my actions. Other neighborhood kids were afraid of me when I got mad, even if they were several years older. I was not one to back down from a fight. Kids will be kids and we became a tightly knit group of neighborhood kids. I was well liked and considered to be a leader. Over time, I learned to repress my anger and not show it outwardly unless it escalated to a certain point. Once, though, one of the guys in our neighborhood gang was taunting me over something stupid and I had a baseball bat in my hands about 30 feet away from him. I warned him to shut up. He didn’t, and I tossed the bat with great precision, nailing him in the head and knocking him unconscious, earning the first of what became many groundings. (The later ones weren’t usually for anger issues though). My anger got the best of me very quickly in that instance and I regretted my action right after I did it. I think that incident helped me learn how serious my actions could be if I lost my temper.

So, is it a “sins of the father are the sins of the son” situation? Did growing up with an angry father who hid it well in public help shape my reactions today? Am I doomed to repeat this bizarre behavior the rest of my life? Are there others out there who react the same way and feel the same way I do about this? Why can’t we all be our best selves all the time? How can I be such a “great guy” in public and keep beating my head against a wall trying to change my private behavior?

I can pinpoint times I get angry, but I can’t pinpoint where the anger is coming from. Why do I get so angry when things don’t go as planned, or when I make a silly insignificant mistake? It seems like we all do, but we don’t all blow up over tiny incidents like I sometimes do.

One thing that comes to mind is that things that happen at home and things that happen in public can be quite different. I know I have certain triggers maybe others can relate to. If I spill something I’m quick to react with a “harmless” profanity… Harmless to me, that is. Even a swear word under my breath can cause physical symptoms for my wife because she grew up with a very angry father who used to cuss her out and put her down on a daily basis. It’s not that I am insensitive to this when I let go with a “f—k” or a “sh-t!” I think it’s just how I have reacted since I was a teenager and is deeply ingrained in my subconscious. Other triggers that I tend to stuff include when my spouse buys things that I think aren’t important or that I think she will never use and it will be another thing left around our house that’s already filled with many things. This especially irks me during tax time when I’m seeing how much money was spent on different items during the year… I think I have gotten very angry about this the past several years. I get angry and react with a cuss word when I try to squeeze by some stuff or accidentally knock something off a shelf or a table while passing, often muttering under my breath about the lack of space in our home. I sometimes get angry and tend to stuff my feelings when I’m asked or told to do something when I’m doing something else that I feel is more important or something I enjoy, even though what’s being asked of me isn’t a big deal, especially if I’m playing one of my guitars. Maybe I think I’m not being respected enough when that happens? When I stuff things do I carry the resentment with me?

On the other hand, when I knock something off a table or spill something accidentally in public, I don’t react by cussing or muttering, I simply deal with it. If I’m asked to do something when I don’t really want to do it, I’ll either say no or prioritize the importance of what is being requested with what I might be currently occupied with. What I’m trying to understand is why do I react differently to some of the same things that happen publicly and privately. When I’m at home I have sudden angry outbursts whereas if it happens among strangers I hold in my reactions. One thing I think I need to try to solve is, “do I feel the same amount of anger inside and outside the home?” Is it that I feel like home is a “safe zone” and automatically react by letting my anger out by yelling or (rarely) throwing things (not at animate objects)? It’s like a switch goes on automatically when I get out of the public eye. I’ll even find myself cursing out loud when I’m by myself at things I wouldn’t dream about yelling or cursing about in public.

Why can’t I be my best self no matter where I happen to be? Why do I repeat the angry outbursts that I regret so much right after they happen? Is this a common thing? If so, how common? And how have others re-wired their brains to react differently? I often ask myself these questions because we can’t reside in the consciousness of others to see what they are experiencing. We all have our own “truths.” We all see the world differently through our own eyes painted with memories of past experiences.

My goal is to seek out and implement ways to change this reaction. During my research I have found diverse suggestions about how to battle this curse. “Count to ten” was offered as a way to delay my reaction. One source said that when I feel the angry feeling building, I could step back and take a deep breath, but the reaction is so automatic this hasn’t worked for me. These are things that might help when I DO get angry, and all of us DO get angry. But where is the anger coming from? I’ve tried to adopt the “it is what it is” lifestyle and try not to get too bent out of shape about things. I have become more easy going as I have aged. I tend to not care about what others think of me. I have an easier time of saying “no” to things I don’t want to do or that I feel aren’t as important as other things I am doing. I think this reduces the number of opportunities that might make me feel angry. I’m trying to identify triggers and tell my wife when I’m frustrated with something around the house, but my tendency is to still not say anything and let it simmer. I think I learned to bottle things up inside me so that when little things or irrelevant things do happen all the anger that was already brewing comes out.

I think the best suggestion I have heard since identifying this anger issue in me is to communicate what I’m feeling at the time something happens instead of stuffing it. Then, maybe, there won’t be this underlying pressure cooker ready to explode at the slightest provocation? Other suggestions I have found and need to implement are posting statements all over the house reminding me of things I am grateful for (we already have some of these I just need to stop and take the time to read them), keep a journal that specifies times when I get angry and what I was feeling at the time, and taking time each day for quiet meditation, playing guitar, writing, and exercise. With my recent retirement I plan to schedule these things daily so that days and weeks don’t go by without me taking these proactive measures.

Overall, I know I have a wonderful life and a great wife. I have all the reasons in the world to be happy. I will continue to look for things to be grateful for, focusing as much as possible on the positive. I will continue to look for intervention ideas to help me overcome this behavior so I can be my best self at home and in public. As Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw of Styx wrote in song years ago, “Why must you be such an angry young man when your future looks quite bright to me?” The answer to their question is, “I don’t.”

I don’t…want to live my life as an angry person. I want to live my best life at all times!