Temper, Temper

I like to blog about the world around me, and noble ideas and the like, but sometimes the truths around and about me are not pretty. Like this.

I am embarrassed but feel compelled to admit that I “lost my temper” on the phone yesterday, during a conversation with a representative of an agency working with my son. They had decided, based on their computer model, that a service we have been providing him is no longer therapeutic according to their definition, and so will not be funded. I knew that answer was coming, and I tried to school myself to stay calm and argue rationally, but I didn’t. At the time what I heard and reacted to was a smug, “we understand that you don’t agree, and that is your right, but . . . .” I refused to hear more, and told the young woman that their decision was simply wrong and I didn’t want to hear any sugar-coating, that I would be appealing it, and would be considering changing agencies.


Well.


So what did I accomplish? Nothing. The answer stayed the same, I had likely burnt a bridge, and felt bad (and I'm pretty sure she did, too. At the moment that was my intention).


More fundamentally, I demonstrated a serious flaw in my self. To quote the Christian writer, C.S. Lewis,


"Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is...If there are rats in a cellar, you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way, the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man: it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am...Apparently the rats of resentment and vindictiveness are always there in the cellar of my soul."

Mere Christianity

So that’s the kind of man I am. Ill-tempered. No matter how much I smooth it over and deny it when things are going my way.


So where do I go from here? Do I simply accept that’s who and what I am, and go on being that person. I don’t think that’s a wise choice.


I have a vague idea that Christians would ask to be forgiven and pray for help, and here’s what the Taoists say about bad temper:


"Temper is the result of emotions running wild . . . .Bad temper is the result of self-importance. Bad temper is harmful to health because it creates bad ch’i in our bodies.Verbal arguments, competitiveness, aggressiveness, impatience, frustration, annoyance, are all manifestations of bad temper. How can people with these dispositions attain the Tao?"


Seven Taoist Masters: A Folk Novel of China


Not good news. So what do I do, here in my year of Tao?


“Know the illusion of material goods. Cultivate compassion and your temper will be calmed. . . . . The Taoists tell us to ‘act intuitively.’ . . . .[W]e need to act intuitively, that is, act spontaneously from a heart that is tamed of desire and craving. If you can do these things, then you will have no problem attaining the Tao.” Id.


Peace of cake, what? So what is Taoist compassion, anyway (other than one of the Three Jewels of Taoism as set out in Chapter 67 of the Tao Te Ching? According to Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education,


“In the classical teachings. . . compassion is defined as the heart that trembles in the face of suffering. At times, compassion is translated as the heart that can tremble in the face of suffering. It is aspired to as the noblest quality of the human heart, the motivation underlying all meditative paths of healing and liberation.

Compassion is a response to suffering, the inevitable adversity all human beings will meet in their lives, whether it is the pain embedded in the fabric of ageing, sickness and death or the psychological and emotional afflictions that debilitate the mind. Compassion is the acknowledgment that not all pain can be ‘fixed’ or ‘solved’ but all suffering is made more approachable in a landscape of compassion.

Compassion is a multi-textured response to pain, sorrow and anguish. It includes kindness, empathy, generosity and acceptance. The strands of courage, tolerance, equanimity are equally woven into the cloth of compassion. Above all compassion is the capacity to open to the reality of suffering and to aspire to its healing. The Dalai Lama once said, ‘If you want to know what compassion is, look into the eyes of a mother or father as they cradle their sick and fevered child'”


That’s a lot to live up to. I started by sending an e-mail of apology and reminding myself that there is no reason to treat another human being like an object to be attacked.


It’s a beginning, right?