FEELING GOOD OR AM I

I’m ‘Feeling Good’! O.K. maybe not that good but I did take a quiz from the self-help book titled ‘Feeling Good – The New Mood Therapy’ the other day. Someone at work had a copy and we all took turns taking a few of the books many quizzes about anger and depression. I think most of my co-workers lied on the tests because, although anger-wise I fell into what the book called the ‘average’ range, my score was higher then everyone else’s. Now I might not be working with a group of hair-trigger crazy hot heads, but I certainly do not have the worst temper of the bunch.

Am I an angry guy? I do not lose my temper much anymore but I guess I still have the potential to become a blood boiling raving loony (there is an AC guy and an American Airlines ticket agent that can vouch for that but that’s for another blog). Age and maturity have mellowed me. Of course the fact that I am pretty darn happy with my life helps too. It’s hard to blow your stack when there is nothing much to get mad at.

I learned how to blow my top from my Dad. When I was a kid my father rarely yelled and screamed, but on the few occasions that he did blow a fuse it was very intense. About the most angry he ever got at me was when I was being over the top obnoxious at a local Chinese Restaurant. He had enough of my whining and complaining and rhetorically said ‘if you do not like it, leave’. So I did. He was not to pleased that his annoying son was taking him so literally.

I was a few blocks into my brooding teenager long stroll home when the family car swerved up next to the curb along side of me. My Dad tossed me into the car yelling stuff like ‘no one walks out on me’. We picked up the rest of the family who were cautiously waiting in front of the restaurant and we all silently sped home. At the house my Dad dragged me into the bathroom and as punishment for my behavior he proceeded to cut off several inches of my groovy long 1970s hair. Such trauma, maybe I should borrow that copy of the ‘Feeling Good’ book.

‘Feeling Good’ claims to teach you how to ‘combat feelings of depression so you can develop greater self-esteem.’ Maybe the book works, maybe it does not. I have never been a huge fan of self-help books. It seems to me that often the folks that are avid readers of this stuff are not willing to do the hard work that is required to truly change and better ones self. Instead they are searching for the miracle one-step quick fix. In other words simply buying a dozen Deepak Chopra books will not magically connect my mind and body in the same way dedicating my entire life to the intense study of the relationship between quantum mechanics and the healing process might.
If my Dad had read a bunch of self help books would he still have responded to my butt-head behavior by cutting off my hair? I hope so. Occasionally letting go and being angry is healthy. I love my Father and now that I am an adult I could not conceive of him being any different. He is the man that during a heated debate over dinner once said “what you know about it (the topic of debate) you could put in a thimble, stick it in your eye and it would not blind you.” Now there are no self-help books out there that can teach you lines like that.