Before anybody gets offended, relax. This is humor mixed with observation. As a therapist, I have learned every single one of us can become difficult sometimes, including me.
Everybody likes to call somebody an asshole these days.
Traffic brings it out. Facebook comments bring it out. Church meetings especially bring it out. Human beings have this incredible ability to become irritated, defensive, reactive, and emotionally loud the moment life stops cooperating with our expectations.
But the older I get, the more I think the real danger is not becoming an asshole.
The real danger is becoming a hemorrhoid.
Think about it.
An asshole eventually passes.
A hemorrhoid stays inflamed. Sensitive to everything. Constantly irritated. Making every situation more uncomfortable than it needs to be.
That is a whole different level of emotional existence right there.
I realized this standing in line at a grocery store one day behind a grown man losing his mind because the cashier asked him, “Paper or plastic?”
You would have thought she insulted his family lineage, his masculinity, and the Constitution all at once.
Face red. Arms moving. Deep dramatic sighs. Looking around for support from strangers like he was leading a revolution in aisle seven.
And I remember thinking, “Sir… this is not about the bags.”
What fascinates me as a therapist is how many people slowly build identities around irritation.
Every disagreement becomes personal.
Every inconvenience becomes proof the world is against them.
Every conversation becomes pressure.
Somewhere along the way, frustration stops being an emotion they experience and starts becoming the personality they carry.
Most people do not even realize it happened.
Pain becomes familiar.
Negativity becomes comfortable.
Chronic irritation disguises itself as honesty, toughness, discernment, or “I am just telling it like it is.”
Emotionally healthy people learn something important:
Not every thought deserves expression.
Not every irritation deserves oxygen.
Not every offense deserves a reaction.
Sometimes maturity looks less like winning the argument and more like refusing to become emotionally swollen over every little thing.
Life irritates everybody.
Character is deciding whether you become medicine… or inflammation.
And honestly?
The world already has enough hemorrhoids.