My Father's Tone: A Short Story

His tone was so unexpected that it ignited a combination of fear and shock inside of me. I could explicitly see the anger quietly overwhelm him. My father rarely expressed anger so when he felt it, it was transparent and unmistakable. He attempted to remain calm due to the fact he was speaking to me, an eleven year old at the time who was constantly confused about anything having to do with mom and dad. Despite his attempts, my fathers voice shook with rage as he told me there was no possible way I was going to spend the night at my mothers apartment. She had just moved out to an apartment about five minutes from our house for reasons that at the time were a mystery to me. All I knew was that she had invited me to spend the night with her and

I could hear his frustration grow. Listening to my mother plead her case I could hear the frustration in her voice but I detected an inkling of submission and guilt in her tone as well. It was easily recognizable since she spoke in the same tone when she would apologize after reacting angrily and disproportionately to emotional situations in the past. This was due to complications in her mental health which caused her to be predisposed to these overreactions. It struck me as odd though that she begun the argument in the same tone that she normally ended her rampages in. I expected to hear anger and what I heard more distinctly was sadness. The roles seemed reversed, my father who was nearly always calm and quiet was now clearly angry. This was a state of mind he rarely enters or displays. It made my stomach to turn. My mother continued to make an argument for herself. At one point she expressed that I was her child as well and protested the unfariness of the situation. Despite her pleas my fathers position on the subject was unyielding and there seemed to be something preventing him from hearing any rationality in her defense. Ultimately, my mother complied with his

In its complexity lies all of our memories, feelings, thoughts and ideas. The book Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman attempts to break down the complexity of emotional life. It attempts to give its reader an understanding of the relationship between people’s emotions and their actions. Specifically in the situations similar to the conflict that I descreibed from my childhood. The information found in Golemans book can be extremely useful in everyday life. Emotional intelligence that is exercised by the subconscious can be recognized consciously to help people better understand themselves and others and consequently react to the various situations they encounter throughout life more