“Attitudinal Change” – How to respond to a fellow party comrade, rather than reacting to fury

Comrades, if all what you read in the internet means something to you, please lets all be careful. Let’s think of your brain as a juke box where most of your records, your reactions to different situations, were recorded well before your reached adolescence. Then, as life goes on and every time someone pushes your button, you automatically play the record that fits each situation.  (Photo: Essa Thaim Kamara, author)

Or-Bai, take for instance, being bitten by a big, black dog at age 3. As a normal child your brain would make a record called “become afraid when you see a big, black dog.” Now you are at the age of 28. You have forgotten the dog incident at age 3. You are walking down the street and pass a dog that is big – and you guessed it – black. You automatically feel anxiety and apprehension and you want to avoid it, even though it is behind a gate and it cannot harm you now. You find yourself thinking things like, “Big black dogs are dangerous,” and “It’s better to walk on the other side of the street.” – You’re really frightened and petrified and so it is with many anger reactions. I always find people and situations that literally “push our buttons,” and we respond just like that juke box that automatically pulls down a record and starts playing it. Of course, there are times when we should play the usual record. For instance, many social tribulations and political nemesis in our society are solved by people becoming righteously indignant and have the bold mind in taking action to correct an evil or a wrong.

Retrospectively, anger gets people’s attention very quickly and they will then start taking us more seriously. But, 95% of the time, the negative far outweighs the positive when we lose control of our anger feelings. The costs are usually high and the benefits low. We are not on personal emolument here in our political party.

Most of the time, anger simply doesn’t get us to what we desire or need in the first place and only makes things worse in terms of consequences to us, our “victims,” and to the people like new political members who may witness it.

Comrades, rather than reacting to fury that make you sparks off from everywhere, here are few steps you can learn how to choose and deal with the situation – to Respond rather than React repulsively.

• Awareness: Become more aware of patterns of behavior around you by some perpetrators who try to exhibit and sets off anger. The first step of being aware of such mannerism,  is to become conscious and responsive of it and recognize it as it is occurring both at our chapter levels, the forum  and the internet publications.
• Consequences: Learn to think of consequences before you write or act impulsively. Ask yourself: “If I do this or that it will only make matters worse; the people will think I don’t like them at all; Is it worth it to get agitated or angry when someone building a band fire in the APCNA chapters like in the WDC Chapter?” No!
• Listen: Listen to the conversation that you are having within yourself and have a different opinion to what people might think about you! As human beings, we have the ability to monitor our own thinking patterns – to think about what we are thinking about.
• Interrupt: Interrupt your normal pattern of your behavioral attitude which must be replaced by a conscious behavior that moves you closer to your real goals: Ask yourself about what are my options in dealing with this nemesis besides getting others angry? Moreover, it is good to pick your battles and learn to accept irritating behavior without getting upset.
• Observe: Watch how differently people respond to you after you start doing things differently. For instance, your Chapter secretary complains about his president. If you’re usual response is to say something like “I’m tired of hearing you complain about him/her – would you like to hear about a day that was really horrible?” Try to be more supportive and understanding. See if he doesn’t respond to you differently than normal.

Conclusively, it is much better to try and change our behavioral attitude. Ignore other people’s response to your doings, sayings or internet publication by changing yourself first – rather than just demanding that they change to satisfy their needs. Don’t get cranky or agitated when someone steps on your toes – be nice and move on. APC we are one family in one nation. Let’s do the right thing and change our attitude.

Written by: Essa Thaim Kurugba, WDC Chapter, USA

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