Ever had that moment of blind rage where your sister says something catty, a coworker calls you out for something you didn’t do in a meeting, or someone cuts you off in traffic and you imagine leaping at them and drowning them in a shallow bowl of soup?
Your response is half right. You can still drown all of your enemies; just do it with positivity. Many of them may not realize they are being rude, they may be having a miserable day, or they might be fools who bumble about completely unaware.
Rage won’t solve anything and will only compound the negative effects of stress that you are feeling. Instead, help these bumbling fools to be better by drowning them in complete, honest positivity. It’s the best way to stop them from being idiots who upset you and it’s the best way to maintain your interpersonal relationships. Help them be better by being better yourself!
Why It Works
If your positivity is genuine, then drowning your enemies in it has several possible outcomes: they will see your side quicker, any problem solving needed will be more effective, it will improve your mood, it will help out a potentially negative situation, and won’t escalate the situation. You don’t want to be upset, since being upset is silly and mostly useless.
Plus, if you are in the wrong (heaven forbid), sitting down and talking about it calmly will help you realize where you went wrong. Which is much better than developing a bad case of foot-directly-in-the-mouth disease.
How to Stay Positive
Staying positive sounds so easy. It’d be wonderful if we could all be robots with fixed smiles that other humans agreed were real and genuinely helpful, but that’s not really how people work. There’s a few tricks you can do to ensure that you don’t snap, give that creepy “I’m so angry smile,” or burn down your office building because Stacy doesn’t have her stuff together. You can stay positive even when things get a little hectic.
Exercise, Eat Well,& Be Healthy
Exercise is no fun. It can be exhausting. You can make exercise fun, but if you aren’t into running or moving or anything that involves leaving a climate-controlled version of a Roman reclining chair with high speed Wi-Fi, you can rest assured in your sweaty hell that you are making yourself happier in the long term. Exercise helps you stay generally positive, especially things like yoga and pilates which involve deep breathing and dynamic stretching. It’s a wonderful mood improver to add into your life on a regular basis. Being healthy is good for your mood and reduces the amount of sporadic mood swings that can occur. Taking care of your own emotional state is a big part of remaining positive when you feel upset.
Breathe
Boom! A fire of rage and sass hit the top of your mouth and you’re about to let the razor tongue slip across all the words that your cousin just spilled out of her mouth, tearing them into a thousand shreds. They will be shredded just like the useless nonsense they are, and your cousin will feel the same for having made them. Stop, for half a second, give a filler phrase, and start asking her about what she said.
Step #1: Stop.
Step #2: Filler phrases like “that is an interesting perspective” or “Hm. Tell me more about it.” can give you time to defuse a situation, maybe disassociate a little if their rant has nothing to do with you, and figure out why what they said upset you.
Step #3: Talk to them about why it upset you. Or if it’s a personal problem, keep it out of their hair. Did they use faulty information? Is their point a common misconception? Could you use this time to educate the ill-informed person who just made you really frustrated? Perhaps ask them about why they think what they said.
Mindset
There’s no rage. There’s no anger. If the reason you are upset is external, which means that you are not in the wrong, it is a perfect time to teach a lesson. They may not know the same rules that you do. They may not be as well informed as you. It’s a time to bring more people into your mindset. It’s time to drown them in positive love and support while giving them all the tools to succeed where they have failed to recognize your emotional needs. It’s also how you win any battle. It’s never the person who yelled louder that appears to win from a spectator’s point of view. Keeping the goal of winning with positivity in your mind’s eye can help you stay calmer. You are going to get your enemies on your side!
Should You *Sometimes* Break Eggs
There is a time and place for you to break some eggs — to get angry. It’s hopefully pretty rare. You’ve learned to drown your enemies in positivity, and how to give them the tools to be helpful members of society instead of jerks. But when is it appropriate to bring out your rage?
There’s a ton of times to bring out your rage: When someone litters. When a coworker gets bullied. When boxing. Bringing out your rage will help for immediate reactions.
Don’t slap someone. But there are times to yell. Times that you don’t have an infinite world to sit and explain and help someone be better. Yell at litter bugs. Yell at people who start illegal fires. Yell at subway gropers. But be selective with your rage. Negative reinforcement doesn’t help anyone stop being a bad/annoying/fiery rage-inducing insect of a human being.
Drown your enemies in positivity. You probably have to spend some time with them and you definitely want them to stop being terrible. Win every battle, create friends out of your enemies, and keep being positive.
Mary Grace is a magical unicorn of a human being from the gorgeous Boise, Idaho. She loves hiking, skiing, and human interactions with technology. Email her anytime at marmgrace@gmail.com or connect with her on Twitter.
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