When You Can't Take It Anymore

On May 17, 2012, I blew my top and got into a shouting match with my boss. I guess I had had enough and could not take anymore of the stuff she threw not only to me but with everybody else in our office. As Senator Juan Ponce Enrile said to Marcos at the onset of the EDSA Revolution "Mr. President, I hope you're listening. Enough is enough, Mr. President."

My lid just blew up. I dare not tell the whole event. But whenever I get the litany of riles I just count up to 100 and if that is enough I quote Psalms 23.

 "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever."

What I can compare our situation is as Mr. Robert Fulghum wrote in his book "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" titled...

Falling Trees

In the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific some villagers practice a unique form of logging. If a tree is too large to be felled with an ax, the natives cut it down by yelling at it. (Can't lay my hands on the article, but I swear I read it.)

Woodsmen with special powers creep up on a tree just at dawn and suddenly scream at it at the top of their lungs. They continue this for thirty days. The tree dies and falls over.

The theory is that the hollering kills the spirit of the tree. According to the villagers, it always works.

Ah, those poor naive innocents. Such quaintly charming habits of the jungle. Screaming at trees, indeed. How primitive.

Too bad they don't have the advantages of modern technology and the scientific mind. Me? I yell at my wife. And yell at the telephone and the lawn mower. And yell at the TV and the newspaper and my children. I've been known to shake my fist and yell at the sky at times. Man next door yells at his car a lot. And this summer I heard him yell at a stepladder for most of an afternoon.

We modern, urban, educated folks yell at traffic and umpires and bills and banks and machines--especially machines. Machines and relatives get most of the yelling. Don't know what good it does. Machines and things just sit there. Even kicking doesn't always help.

As for people, well, the Solomon Islanders may have a point. Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts...

 I consider myself a very patient man. I am a cool person, slow to anger and very much doesn't lose my composure. But as John Dryden puts it "Beware the Fury of a Patient Man."