Warren Buffett, the "Go to Hell" Pause and the Burn

David Brooks recent graduation like-hacks column was full of interesting tidbits like 

Job interviews are not really about you. They are about the employer’s needs and how you can fill them.

and

Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.

This is the one I've most taken to heart:

              You can always tell someone to go to hell tomorrow.

This quotation from Warren Buffett has saved my bacon and reduced my blood pressure. I have recently been working on pausing as a way to reduce my reactivity to difficult situations.

This phrase immediately calms me down, because I know I am going to force myself to wait to tell someone off. This gives me time to think, ponder and pray on what I should do before acting. I still stand up for myself, and in a far more reasonable way. This pause helps me to be honest with myself about what is bothering me. I figure out what is my part before I haul off and tell someone where to put it. Is the other person a louse, or do I have a hard time trusting someone's good intentions? When I am calm and more rational, I see things more clearly, especially after the first wave of anger clears.

In recent weeks, I got an email that upset me. No, it completely pissed me off. I was livid, outraged. I read it and wrote a nasty reply. I deleted the nasty reply and I wrote another nasty reply. I fumed all the next morning about it, but I had other things going on so I was distracted. When I looked at the email again in the afternoon, I saw it in a different light. What I had first thought was horrendous wasn't so bad. The following day, I was rational. There were a few things that I needed to mention that were off, for sure, but I calmly explained my concerns instead of going off like an unhinged psycho. Without two days to pause, I might have destroyed a working relationship that was otherwise going well. I was able to save it by not being a lunatic. And I got my points across.

The other lovely thing about this idea is that I am not dismissing my initial anger, or stuffing it down. I am turning the anger burner down from boil to simmer. I know I am mad and upset, but I am not going to act out in anger. I will act once the initial anger is at a reasonable temperature, and no one gets burned.