Use Your Words, but Carefully

On occasion, all of us experience emotions of what many consider to be the negative variety. Pain. Frustration. Fear. Suffering. Loss. When we experience these emotions, we usually have need to express them in some manner or another. Those of us who aren't completely lacking in self control, find ways to restrain ourselves from doing things that lead to even more cause for negative emotions. In other words, we learn how to keep from lashing out at every little thing that happens. It doesn't always work, but with practice, it gets easier.

In recent years, people have opted for the phrase 'use your words' when trying to teach others not to act out physically when full of negative emotion. The idea behind it is that if you speak or write about something instead of hitting a wall or a poor innocent animal or someone else, you're doing less harm. Okay, it's true that you're doing less harm, but that doesn't mean you're doing no harm.

Lately, it seems that more and more people are taking to writing letters to publications to vent their frustrations. On the surface, this may seem like a good and civilized thing. You're not physically harming anyone. You're not yelling at anyone. You're just intelligently using your words to discuss the stuff that makes you angry.

The problem is, most of us, when angry, aren't really thinking that clearly. Our emotions are clouding our logic and, quite often, our judgment. We say or write things we would normally never let others know. When we yield to the emotion and do these things anyway, we most often just cause more trouble for ourselves.

Now I will admit that I can be quite guilty of this. I've written some blog posts that were nothing but emotion-fueled GRRR sessions. All I did was rant. Looking back on said posts, they made very little sense. It was just "I am mad about this and it was bad and if you like it, you are bad!" or something like that.  I would just delete them, but I probably need the reminder that I can get this way.

I also used to have this problem on Facebook. Back before I made the personal rule NOT to argue with people on Facebook, I argued with them quite frequently. I'd get all emotional about whatever topic and write long and complex replies with much righteous anger and what I assumed was flawless logic. This was usually far from  the truth. Making the rule that I don't argue with people on Facebook is probably one of the best decisions I've made. Now I just hide the posts that piss me off and ignore the rest.

I wrote last week about the woman who addressed the whole female population at Princeton with her open letter to the college newspaper.  In her frustrations about her personal decisions, she decided to 'use her words' .  .  . not only failed in her communication but also succeeded in embarrassing herself. However, as bad as hers was, today I read about a high school student who sent an open letter 'to all the colleges that rejected me' as written as an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. In print, for all the world to see, in a way that will never be erased, she made the decision to vent her frustrations and 'use her words'  . . . to make herself look like an entitled resentful brat. Writing this did her no good. In fact, it may do her harm in terms of her chances for finding ANY college to accept her.

I do realize that quite often we feel moved to speak about our emotions. We want to rant. We want to scream. We want to write open letters and put them out there for the whole world to see. However, before we do these things, even before we 'use our words,' we should take a few moments and reflect on the consequences of our actions.

Will my action cause more harm?
Is my action something I would do were I calm?
Will my action create bigger problems?

I do know that it feels quite good to vent frustrations. I know it is helpful to yell. I know it is helpful to write long letters and to tell people why they are wrong on Facebook. I also know that expressions of emotion can be a lot like cat puke. The cat pukes because it can't help itself. Once it does, it usually feels better and just walks away and goes on about its business. But the cat puke is still there. Someone has to deal with it and clean it up. So, just because the cat feels better about the situation doesn't alter the fact that there are very real and very sucky consequences.

It's part of our nature as humans to feel emotions. Most of us feel the need to respond to these emotions in one way or another. However, as thinking and rational beings, HOW we choose to respond is something we can certainly seek to take control over. It's something we need to learn, otherwise we will more often than not, find ourselves in ever escalating cycle of things just getting more and more dramatic. If this is your goal, I suppose that is, while twisted, fine. But if your goal is to have LESS drama, it might be worth your while to consider the route that allows you to achieve that serenity as quickly as possible.

And for goodness sake, don't make your private issues a topic for public discussion.