A Small Loud Failure
I confess to a small, loud failure. The other day, I lost my temper with my son and shattered his iPad. In the process, I broke something far more fragile. A heart. My own composure. Three hundred dollars dissolved into nothing, but the greater cost was invisible and immediate.
He recovered quickly, as children often do. Resilience seems to be their native language. He hugs me now, tells me he loves me, as if to remind me that forgiveness arrives before we’ve learned how to ask for it. Still, the moment left a mark—not on him, I hope, but on me. Because I know this wasn’t an accident. It was a signal.
I’ve been circling this terrain for years, making small improvements, convincing myself I’m getting better. And yet, somewhere in the shaded back rooms of my psyche, something waits patiently. My anger. Quiet, disciplined, well-behaved—until it isn’t.
I am, by nature, an angry person who has learned to be polite. I store my disagreements carefully, like unopened letters, afraid that if I read them aloud I might burn down rooms I still need to live in. Assertiveness feels foreign; disagreement feels dangerous. So I adapt. I smooth. I endure. Until the pressure finds its own exit.
Perhaps this is cultural. That old instinct to keep harmony at all costs, to practice pakikisama, to go along so no one is disturbed. A beautiful value, until it curdles. What begins as courtesy hardens into silence, and silence, left unattended, turns combustible.
So now I begin again. Not dramatically, not heroically—but deliberately. I learn the language of anger instead of pretending it doesn’t speak. I sit still and breathe, letting meditation become a quiet listening post rather than an escape hatch. I notice the moment before the wave breaks and step away, if only for a moment.
This, too, is a kind of practice. One that must be done daily, imperfectly, with humility. Not to become calmer than others—but to become more honest with myself.
~ Bai, Tuesday, January 27, 2026, NorCal