Misdirected emotions

A friend, it seems, wanted to spring a surprise on her spouse, by way of setting up a special party, to celebrate his recent professional success. Accordingly, she had tried decking up her entire living room with floral festoons, resplendent fairy bulbs, multi-hued streamers and confetti-filled balloons. She was in high-jinks, feeling all upbeat as she awaited her husband’s entry.

As destiny would have it, the moment he stepped in, he started snapping at her, saying, he was ill-prepared for that nocturnal-eve bash. Actually, his foul mood and fiery outbursts were an offshoot of having been stranded in traffic snarls for long stretches of time. He still was hurling expletives at those errant co-commuters who had tried flouting traffic rules to create more gridlocks and consequent chaos on roads.

Apparently, with his ire and irritation getting misdirected towards his wife, he had vitiated home atmosphere by dampening her mood and deflating her spirits. Later on, feeling contrite, when he tried apologising, she had sulked off in her silent shell, making him feel more miserable. Paradoxically, many times, those who bear the brunt of our frustrations, mental tensions, depressions, disappointments, irritations and indignations, etc, are the ones closely related to us, which could be the parent, sibling, spouse or even children!

Here, with these loved ones becoming first the casualty of our misdirected emotions, we don’t realise how much of mental harm/ hurt we’d be inflicting on them by fiercely flinging our flaming tempers, albeit unwittingly. But still, they stick to us with surplus patience/ tolerance due to their supreme love for us.

But there are those who do not care a fig for us. On these folks, when we unleash these misdirected emotions, there are chances of us incurring some irrevocable damage/ losses. For instance, say, we try letting loose home-related frustrations on colleagues at workplace by way of wearing a grumpy attitude and waspishly snapping at them. Naturally, we’d have them retorting back, besides us having created irreparable dents in those relations. Worse still, the others around too may start avoiding us, the way one tries sidestepping globs of dung!

Sometime back, a friend, who, while on one of the shopping expeditions, was in singularly bad mood, following a severe spat with her spouse. Her awful mood manifested itself as antagonistic attitude, as she got into blazing arguments with all salespersons, shop proprietors, even street hucksters, selling sundry wares.
Even after coming home, since she was still in that squabbling hangover, she started snapping at her domestic help for her seemingly sluggish attitude.

Needless to say, the maid bid adieu to her, by abruptly terminating her services. In all the aforesaid instances, it’s evident that by showing our anger and other negative emotions on others, we’d be harming ourselves more than we harm others. It’s like “Cutting off your nose to spite your face!”