The Return of the Blog Quiz

Yes, it's true. I'm back in blog quiz mode. It's not that I'm dealing with loads of unbloggables or anything. Quite the opposite in fact, things are going pretty well these days. I think it's just that not much is going on as the year winds down. My main activity today was trying a new pork chop recipe as it was my turn to cook!

So instead of a brilliant post, I give you a blog quiz.

There's Not a Violent Bone in Your Body

You're cool and collected, even when someone really gets under your skin. And while you don't blow up when you're angry, you know how to express your anger calmly. You don't bottle emotions up or let them get out of control. For you, violence would never be an option.

Could You Be Violent?

I do wonder what my former coworkers would think about this result. You see, once upon a time I was SO frustrated with a certain colleague in another office who was always making mistakes and then blaming me for them to the higher ups that in my anger I attacked an unsuspecting paper recycling box with my foot. The poor box didn't see what was coming. Another time, we had a piñata in the office for our annual Cinco de Mayo party. Instead of a stick, for some reason we had a hammer. The person before me who took his "swing" at the piñata knocked it onto the ground, so all I had to do was knock it open with the hammer. Except that the piñata seemed to be made of steel. I pounded and I pounded and I pounded until FINALLY, it opened. When I looked up my coworkers were looking up at me with perplexed looks on their faces. For my birthday that year they gave me a rubber hammer that squeeked!

So truth be told, I think we all have the capacity to be a little violent. I've never been violent towards another actual human being and don't think I'm the type, but these two examples illustrate that the blog quiz is not accurate. There is a violent bone in my body. And these two examples also illustrate that unresolved and pent up anger can be dangerous.

Master Yoda tells us that "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering." Wise words. When we can't talk about something, there's an element of fear there that is holding us back. Over time, it can lead to anger and so forth. I'm rambling, but there is a lot of truth to that.

The challenge is that we live in the world. We live with people who will annoy us. We live with ourselves who will also annoy us, whether it is when we put our foot in our mouth once again or fail to stick up for the oppressed. The question is, what do we do with our anger? Do we name it and use it positively to affect change, if needed? Or do we bottle it up, pretend it's not there, and then one day we're attacking defenseless office equipment and party decorations.

The choice is ours.

By the way, I think this post has also earned the new "randomness" label!