Most of the trouble I cause in my world comes from an inability to stop myself from talking. At least 95% of those instances revolve around me being agitated to one extreme or another about something. And while I well know I should keep my mouth shut when I’m worked-up, I’m not always successful. I could argue that most of the agitation is caused by someone else making inappropriate comments in a similarly excited state. But being occasionally unable to ignore such provocations–as you would expect from any rational person–isn’t something to be proud of.
I seem to be able to better handle it in business than my personal life. But then you won’t survive long in business if you take it personally, for various reasons, (mental health, upset clients, lack of objectivity, blah blah blah). And I’ve found that even when a client does go off the deep and attempt to take me with them, if I just keep quiet and wait a day or two, cooler thoughts will prevail without any intervention from me.
But friends and family have signed some waiver. They’ve probably seen me behaving like a jackass at some point, and still decided to continue talking to me. So my guard is down, my filters are off. While there’s still plenty of things I shouldn’t say, I usually don’t see them coming until they’re on the way out of my mouth. In extreme cases I’ve cut off any meaningful conversations with certain people, in order to avoid conflict. But I don’t like that, and it’s not friendship, to me.
I don’t have an acceptable excuse. I don’t have a solution. I’m still working on it.
