Yesterday I rode my motorcycle to work. It’s been unusually warm lately and as I worked out most of the problems I’ve been having with the bike I figured why not. It was very enjoyable until I nearly got killed on the way home. About a quarter of a mile from my apartment there’s an intersection that leads to a road with some popular spots for tourists. For some reason people who come back from that road don’t understand that they’re supposed to stop when there’s oncoming traffic on the main road. I was such traffic.
I was behind somebody that was going way to slow so as it was I was frustrated. As they turned (or rather, crawled) onto that road I swerved around them. I understand that may not be the proper thing to do. However, there was nothing about me that was invisible. Apparently that didn’t stop the driver coming onto the main road to keep on coming. I think they did in fact see me and started to stop but then decided to keep going anyway. I had to veer to the right and hit my breaks, causing my rear tire to swerve. Fortunately I was going slowly so I was able to keep myself upright. The car kept going and then slowed down. I don’t know if they were going to check if I was okay or not. It might have been because I stopped for a moment to catch my breath and then to turn back to them to yell “Asshole!”
While I was perfectly in the right to do that I immediately felt bad. Both the car and I drove away. I doubt they gave it much thought. But I couldn’t help but mull over it for a while. I tend to do that. I didn’t really feel angry for very long. Probably the yelling helped as a release. If anything I can justify it for that. But I really had to tell myself that no, calling somebody an asshole isn’t bad when they nearly ran you over. For that matter there’s a lot worse things that I could have done. Besides all of that they probably didn’t hear me anyway. They certainly didn’t seem to care too much as they drove off.
I guess my problem is that I’m too nice. Maybe that’s why I get angry for long stretches of time sometimes (see yesterday’s post). Contrary to what seems to be popular opinion I do hold back. I don’t want to say the wrong thing so I try to control myself. The problem with that is that I’m then holding it in and getting myself even angrier. To that end when I’m in that state I’m likelier to think of more reasons to be angry about the subject. At least yesterday I gave in and yelled right away. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t so upset for as long as I usually am.
In that case I need to start yelling and cursing at people from now on aside from when I’m driving. I do the same thing in the car that I did on the motorcycle. That’s probably why it came so naturally to me yesterday. But in the car I have the reasonable assumption that the other person can’t hear me. I need to express myself to others. I’ll have to try to be constructive in my comments but I can’t always be so nice. It’s going to be difficult at work. Now that they’re hiring more people for the morning I’ll have more people to supervise. There are times that I can get frustrated with their work. I’ll try not to drive them away but I can’t hold back my anger. That will only make things worse.
Ragged Good Looks 