Discussion
The three incidences, work rage, computer rage, and pedestrian rage, occurred in a cycle that showed the specific steps of what lead me to rage. I was first presented with an aversive stimulus. My work rage stimulus was an opinionated customer. Computer rage was a burnt out monitor and an inoperable internet connection. Pedestrian rage was the sudden movement of a van that I felt was going to hit me. When the stimulus connected to my brain I would respond with an emotion. Usually it was always a shock of disbelief. Then I would be offended by the stimulus and my shock would turn into rage. This is the basic sequence flow of how my rage manifested into a blow torching dragon. The details of my incidences are located in the Self-Witnessing Observations section.
I have stated that what is needed first in order to control the age of rage is compassion, respect, and patience. After analyzing my self-witnessing observations I have concluded these three morals and values are an important part of educating people on emotional intelligence. People have to contain these virtues in order for emotional intelligence education to work and become incorporated into society. Compassion is sympathy and mercy for others. Respect is treating others with consideration and high regard. Patience is the ability to wait calmly. When these virtues are defined it is obvious that people in a rage do not have these qualities. I have realized this in my own rage. My work rage was lacking compassion for the customers needs, lacking respect for the lady as a human being that deserves to be treated fairly, and lacking patience to deal with a customer, which is my job. Computer rage is a different scenario, but the three virtues is needed to control rage. I had no compassion to understand why my computer was having problems, there was no respect for what my computer is capable of doing that I depend on daily, and I had no patience to deal with the problems, which would have helped to ease my stress. In my pedestrian rage incident I had no compassion to forgive the driver even when I was safe, the lack of respect I showed by eyeing the lady negatively, and my loss of patience in understanding the situation and jumping to my own conclusions. In society majority of the people have morals and values that they live by. I have morals and values that I pride myself on, so I can be someone that I respect. I cannot respect myself when my rage is everything that I would not want to be.
Everyone is capable of following the three virtues, all it takes is time. By wanting to be a virtuous person people can then be educated on dealing with their emotions constructively. I believe there are two types of rage. Dysfunctional rage and functional rage. Dysfunctional rage is an emotion that cannot be controlled and this leads to the escalation of incidences. This type of rage is detrimental to a person's behavior and it produces a cycle in dealing with problems in a rage. Rage becomes the quick fix to problems that society refers to as the age of rage. Functional rage is an emotion that one feels and can control in order to deal with the task at hand. Emotions cannot be denied, but they can be understood. Through emotional intelligence education people can take their anger and turn it into positive constructs. For example, in my work rage I could have looked at the situation as the customer being frustrated that we did not have what she needed and it was my job to help her find a solution to her problem. By taking this view point I feel my rage, but I would then realize why the situation is making me feel this way. My solution would be to understand where the lady is coming from, it being my job to help customers, then give her suggestions on what she could do to help her solve her problem.
The conclusion of my self-witnessing observations are first, the three virtues compassion, respect, and patience. This creates the foundation of understanding emotions. Second, emotional intelligence education would then be successful to help people control their rage and deal with the situation constructively. Third, once people understand their rage they can then use things like positive constructs to help modify behavior. There are many other reason why people rage, this conclusion I came to was from my own experience. Ideas from the Road Rage book helped me to conclude on things like dysfunctional and functional rage, as well as many other things. This report has helped me to better understand myself. I know what my faults are and analyzing them has allowed me to come up with solutions that would help me control my rage.
Home Self-Witnessing Observations References
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