Learning to Control Emotions Without Losing Your Voice

While growing up I used to get angry when someone did something that hurt my feelings to the point where I was not to air my opinion to the people or for the general public to know, but with time and as I increased in age, experience, and wisdom, I began to amend my ways in how I react to things, if at all I must react, so I won't be misinterpreted as being an angry bird or someone who can't control their emotions. However, on a few occasions, something happened after that that made me lose my cool, and one such occasion is what I'd be sharing about below.

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Immediately after being transferred to my new workplace, I took out time to study all of my new colleagues to know and understand their kind of person and nature, to know who's worth moving close to and who I need to create as much gap as possible from. After months of consistent scrutiny of each individual, I finally come to conclusions, and that helps guide my interactions with everyone going forward. Among those, I made a point of duty to avoid being in any conversations or drama with a woman I ended up having this issue I'd be talking about below with.

You might be wondering why I judge people to that point, but then the truth is that I just want a drama-free life, and that's why I often take out time to study people before letting them gain entrance into my safe zone, and for this woman, different experiences show there's a big red flag on her, but then, one way or another, we still had interaction that led to me losing my cool, since it's almost impossible to choose not to communicate with someone you work in the same organization with. The first time I had issues with this woman was regarding financial issues.

I charged with the responsibility collecting some fee from the students in my class, and she was the one every teachers was asked to remit to. So on the deadline of the collection of that payment, I remitted the money paid to me to her and told her a certain number of students didn't pay. Fast forward to a few days after, she went to my class to find out which students hadn't paid, and none of the students stood up at her command that anyone who hadn't paid should stand up, so immediately she assumed within her heart that all the students had paid, that I must have lied to her, and that I spent part of the money.

_{Image was taken and edited on canva library}

She came and accused me of spending the money to my face in the presence of other teachers, and I told her respectfully that that's a lie, so I asked her to follow me to the class to confirm that, and when we went to the classroom, I held the list of everyone who has paid, which I called immediately when we were in the class. The remaining students whose names weren't called were asked if they've paid, and they all said no, which goes on to clear my name from that accusation, but unfortunately it didn't stop there, because the following academic section at the exact same time happened, and I had to clear my name using the previous strategy.

Seeing how that accusation reoccurred twice, I decided to devise a means to avoid that from happening again, so I wrote an extra list of students who hadn't paid, and during the third academy section, as I was remitting the money to her, I also gave her the list of students that hadn't paid, but for reasons best known to her, she refused to collect the list from me. Fast forward to two days after that, she once again went to make inquiries of those who hadn't paid in my class and got no response once again, and she started shouting at the top of her voice, calling me a thief, from that classroom down to where I was.

I was literally furious that very day, that unlike the two other times, this time around I gave her a taste of her own medicine, because as she was calling me a thief, I called her names as well, and it took the intervention of the management to call the situation to order. Whereafter, after different inquiries from both of us, they found out I did everything to avoid such from happening again, but at the end of the day I was still asked to apologize to her because she's superior, which I refuse to do till this very day.

_{Image was taken and edited on canva library}

Yes, I understand I might not have acted or spoken in the best way that very day, but deep within, I don't regret what I did to her, because since then, she started respecting herself and collecting a list of those who don't pay to avoid another drama from reoccurring and asked if I'd do such again if it were to happen again. I guess my answer is yes, because when you're accused of stealing and you keep quiet, it's more like you're admitting it's true.