TEMPER AND PRIDE

Someone once observed that temper is what gets us into trouble and it is pride that keeps us there. Most probably so. Temper, it should be noted, is different from anger. We have temper tantrums mainly because we can’t have it our way. Such tantrums know no age limit. Children are not the only ones who have such fits. We adults often lose our temper because things are not going our way or the way we think they should be going. We can excuse children because they don’t know any better. We cannot excuse ourselves because we do know better.

Anger is different. When Jesus encountered people who were not doing what they knew they should be doing, he did not lose his temper. He got angry. He was angry because other people were being hurt and he said so. When we lose our temper, others tell us to calm down and then try to explain why we should and why we were wrong to go off. Righteous anger is something altogether different.

Problems arise, however, when we lose our temper and refuse to calm down because we believe we are justified in being so upset. We have a right, we respond, because we are right even though we are wrong and in the wrong. Again, what keeps us from admitting that we were wrong in flying off the handle is our pride. We do not like to admit that we should have stayed calm.

It is a very humbling experience to have to admit that we did what we knew we should not have done, to admit that we were not in control of our passion, that we allowed ourselves to get out of hand and, in the process, make a fool of ourselves. For that is exactly what we did: we made a fool of ourselves and, in retrospect, had to admit that that is exactly what we had done.

Yet, when we do not allow our pride to get in the way, when we admit, humbly so, that we lost it when we should have stayed calm, we learn some things about ourselves. We learn, first, that we are weak, that we can lose control and that sometimes it is the simplest and most foolish of circumstances that incite that loss of control.

Second, we learn that the humbling experience is painful, especially to our pride. Hopefully, that learning experience will be called to mind the next time we feel a temper tantrum welling up from deep inside. It may not. Human nature being what it is, it often takes several painful learning experience to get the message.

Once we get the message, life becomes a little more pleasant not only for ourselves but also for the people we love. They don’t like to be present when we lose our temper, just as we don’t like to be present when they lose theirs. And when correction is forthcoming, no one wants to be on either end: the one doing the correcting or the recipient of such a correction. There are times when we need to keep pride and temper in check.