My Golden Rule of 2025

For a long time, something I battled with was anger. I used to get angry at anything, anyone, anywhere, and anyhow. And oh, trust me to react whichever way I deemed appropriate for me. I didn’t care about how the person on the receiving side would feel.

I also didn’t care about the kind of impact my actions would have on my image as a person. But in all these, I was scared. I was scared that I would end up losing people close to me. I was scared that it would make me lose opportunities because I remember walking out on my boss once because I was angry.

I was scared of so many things happening, but it didn’t change anything. So in the beginning of the year, I realized I had to take control of this part of me before it ended up destroying me. I heard of anger management and all, but I didn’t think they were actually serious things one could do to help them. I thought they were just theories made up by people.

Anyway, so I came across this 10 count rule by someone in an interview on YouTube. She said she had serious anger issues, and anytime she felt angry, she just said anything that came to her mind. At first, I was like, “Ehhh,” but I don’t think that’s worse than mine. And then she said she used to say the nastiest things, like “Oh, that’s why you are a motherless child,” and then I was like, “Oh, wait, this is actually worse than mine.”

So I listened to that part of the interview, and she said she did the 10 count rule. I don’t know if she made it up or someone made it, but I honestly didn’t bother to find out. I just paid attention to what it entailed. And she said she counts from one to ten in her mind anytime she’s angry, and then by the time she reaches ten, she just says whatever she still has in mind.

But surprisingly, most of the time, by the tenth count, she would either no longer want to talk or what would be on her mind is an apology. To be honest, I even said that’s a lie because how can ten seconds make such a big difference? So I decided to just give it a try.

The first time I did this was somewhere in March. Ladies and gentlemen, I now understand why they say “be slow to anger” because ten seconds actually does a lot when you are angry. It opens your eyes to see things clearly. For me, one of the things that comes to mind during those ten seconds is, "Will you be happy if this was said back to you?" and then I go on to analyze other things.

And I absolutely love that. I’ll definitely write a post about the first time I tried the ten count rule another time. I believe that anyone is flawed, but the fact that you admit your flaws and make an effort to become better for yourself and the people around you? Tell me what is more perfect than that.