Passion

I would like all of you to think of the stereotypical redhead. Are you thinking about it? Good!

I was born the stereotypical redhead. I have the worst temper and I get SO PASSIONATE about things. Most of you that know me well know that I really can get more worked up about something than a lot of people. Over the years I have tried with all my might to control this. When I let myself get worked up nothing good comes of it. I always end up worse in the end than I was in the beginning. Why do I let myself get so upset at things?

Things that I am very passionate about:

• my family-this means that I am passionate about defending my family and that I am passionate when I am in fights with them
• my education-I have worked very hard to learn what I have learned and it gets me really upset when people de-value it
• my religion-it irks me when people de-value my religion or tell me why it's not true. I'm not of the opinion that I know all about my religion or that everyone not in my religion is going to hell or something. Just let me have my space and I'll let you have yours. In fact I find it simply amazing that most of the world's population has sought some sort of religion, even if it isn't mine.
• my person-perhaps this is just my insecurities, but when someone says even a joking comment about me I have such a hard time taking it (even if it is a joke)

In the end I have found that instead of controlling the emotion, which would probably be the best, I have to control the actions. When I get mad I have to just not say anything or step away for a while. It is better to let people just say what they want and stop trying to correct them. This may seem like giving up to some, but for me it has worked really, really well.

The only drawback to this is that days or even minutes later I think of a scathing comeback or remark that would totally make me win, but I've missed my opportunity. My most recent remark that I came up with correlated to a situation that happened over a year ago. Just so nobody thinks I'm that crazy, I wasn't mad about this thing for over a year. I just thought about the situation and realized the perfect response.

Some of this I wish I could change, in fact most of this I wish I could change. I'm not going to apologize about it though. I'm simply reporting the truth.