Temper Tempered

When I was a kid I had a terrible temper.  My parents, my mother especially (although I think I got it from her), were very concerned as I got older that this would be a problem.  Luckily for them and for me, I guess, I was a very small kid until my high school years.  This minimized the damage my temper got me in.  I was also very good at school and painfully shy which also checked the amount of trouble presented.  It was still one of the most frustrating times for me as I struggled to deal with the emotions that bubbled easily to the surface for me.  My parents were divorcing when I was in junior high and they were not very good about keeping us kids out of the fray.  We were forced to take sides.  I think this more than anything else help me get control of the temper.  I could see the tempers of my role models painfully exposed in the most raw and unflattering light.  I didn’t realize at the time but I think I made the decision then that this was not something I wanted others to see in me.  While this did lead to a certain amount of turning into myself, which did not help, at all, with my shyness, in the long run it did help me control my temper.  Joining the Army turned out to be the very best thing I could have done.  The self-discipline a successful military life demands is exactly what I needed, in so many aspects of my life.  This self discipline allowed me to channel the emotions my temper so readily presented me with.  I actually learned to harness the rage and use it to my advantage.  In the infantry the soldiers under my command knew I had a temper.  That combined with the physical size I acquired in young adulthood certainly reinforced whatever orders needed to be carried out.  A certain amount of crazed light in the eyes of an infantry commander is sometimes a good thing.  Of course this doesn’t translate well into civilian life.  My wife and kids know I have a temper and unfortunately have had to bear the brunt of it, though never physically.  I wish I had been better able to control some of the words my temper generated, they deserved better from me.  This is another area in which I was blessed.  My wife and especially my kids were so good to me that I wanted to be a better man, to control my temper.  I still have the temper and still occasionally lose it but learning to channel those emotions have made all the difference in my life.