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Essay / My New Year's Resolution, My Parents' Divorce, and My Passionate Anger
In 2015, thirty-seven percent of people surveyed said their New Year's resolution was to stay fit and healthy. Other top choices included: losing weight, traveling more, and spending more time with family and friends (“This year’s best New Year’s resolution?”). With the start of the new year and the mission to find a goal to achieve by the end of the semester, I started thinking about the things I wanted to change in my life. I was already fit and healthy, I am a poor student so traveling more is practically out of the question and I decided to spend enough time with my family and friends. I started thinking long and hard about what people were telling me about myself and if anything stood out. Over the past few months, I remembered my mother telling me that I should strive to be more “warm and fuzzy” after a visit to my grandmother. Along with that, some of my friends have recently talked about how if they could describe me in two words it would be “passionately angry.” I never realized this about myself until others pointed it out, but I can definitely see what they're talking about. This realization led me to set a goal of not being more warm and fuzzy or less angry, but more open and aware of how others feel. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Three years ago, my parents told me they were getting divorced. I'm only going to discuss this because I firmly believe that to solve a problem you have to get to the root of it and I truly believe that's where a lot of my anger comes from. As you grow up, you hear about divorce from other kids at school and you may even see it on a TV show or in a movie. But you can't imagine what it means to experience this until it happens to you. I don't really remember starting to feel angry or being angry about anything in particular, it just happened because I didn't know how to feel any other way. “Studies in the early 1980s showed that children who suffered repeated divorces received lower grades and that their peers considered them less pleasant to be around ("Eighteen Shocking Children and Divorce Statistics"). say, how would you feel if your life changed forever? I started to get angry with my mother when my father told me he had nothing to do with it. I knew my life didn't. would never be the same again, from everything I had seen and heard about the divorce I knew my mother was moving away and I would have to constantly travel back and forth to see them. would most likely accompany and that I would see him less The idea of family traditions never being the same again could provoke no emotion other than anger. Over the years to come, my anger only grew more. when my mother remarried a man with three children and started a life about forty minutes from where I grew up. The feeling of having to travel back and forth to see both of my parents is enough to drive me crazy some days. Often, I take this anger out on the people around me and on myself. When my mom told me I needed to be more “warm and fuzzy,” I know exactly what she was talking about. When I see other people with their parents or grandparents, they can't wait to give them the big onehug and answer all their questions in detail. For me, I'm most known for acting like I just saw my parents yesterday when they pick me up from school and answer their questions with mumbles and noises. On this particular visit with my grandmother, she wanted to see me after I returned to school at the end of Thanksgiving break. When I walked in, she was excited to hear about everything she had missed while I was in school and what I had been doing while I was home. I was in a hurry to leave and without realizing it, I wasn't thinking at all about how she felt but rather how I didn't want to be there. I don't remember feeling angry in particular, but often I feel like I do it without realizing it because I feel that way more often than not. What I realize now as I work toward my goal is that I should think about how she feels. She loves me as a grandson more than anything in the world and cares so much about how I am. It wouldn't kill me to smile and tell him how I'm doing for a few minutes and I bet if I accepted his huge hug before he left it would get him through a whole week. When I'm angry that I have to drive to my mother's house to see her because I know it's the right thing to do, I have to think about how she feels. She has started her new life, but of course she still cares about me and wants to see me. She's having a hard time trying to balance her life with her new husband and kids and she's trying very hard to make sure I'm a part of it and happy too. Sometimes I feel like all she cares about is making sure she gets what she wants, but I have to remember that she's also doing it for my happiness, even if I feel like this doesn’t make me happy. After all, she is still my mother and has done so much for me, so the least I can do is be happy and willing to talk and see her. Even though I think about it less because dads aren't known for being as loving as your mother, he still wants to see me. I know sometimes I feel angry because he's at his girlfriend's house and I'm home alone. But he's just trying to balance his new life and I can make it even easier for him by being willing and excited to spend time with him. Trying to suppress my anger and show more love won't be easy, but I know that thinking about how much this will mean to my family will help. As for my “passionate anger,” I believe it comes from the fact that I am easily irritated by things that happen in the everyday world. You could say I have a few pet peeves. To name a few, these would be people walking too slowly in front of me, design flaws (like why would the building be laid out that way? It would be much easier if the doors were here), a lack of planning in advance. , having to wait for late people and meetings lasting longer than necessary. I could go on. “When our environment causes stress and frustration, we feel anger, just as we feel anger toward people who cause us stress and frustration. People are not always the trigger, unless they are the drivers on clogged highways that contribute to road rage (Eldridge). Pilots are something else that definitely makes me angry. Some days are worse than others, where I feel angry at everything that is happening around me. As part of my goal, I want to remember that whatever happens, it's really not..