A terrible thing happened to Lil Wayne while he was in jail: His frenemy Drake came by to confess that he had previously hooked up with his girlfriend, sending Weezy into a blind rage. But despite this abject betrayal, our favorite lean freak kept his cool with scientifically vetted anger management techniques. He recounted his amazing tale of self-control in his new memoir, GONE ‘TIL NOVEMBER: A Journal of Rikers Island:
This is the type of shit that a man never wants to find out while he’s locked up. Or maybe so, ’cause only God knows what I would’ve done if I wasn’t locked up right now. As soon as I found out, I told them to just lock me in, and I’ve basically just been by myself in my cell for the last couple of days.
The American Psychological Association recommends “changing your environment” to deal with irritation and fury. Doing so essentially amounts to taking a “time out” — that is, isolating yourself socially in order to slow the escalation of rage and avoiding rash, violent actions on the people around you.
While enforcing time-outs is best known as a strategy for dealing with unruly toddlers, it’s also proven incredibly useful for adults recognizing the need to refocus in the heat of the moment. But because the key to using time-outs effectively is ensuring they’re self-imposed, doing so is easier said than done, notes AfterDeployment.org, a well-being resource for ex-military personnel. After all, when you’re face to face with your handsome cuckold of a friend, exercising self-discipline is probably the furthest thing from your mind.
Lil Wayne saved his friendship with Drake by self-imposing a "time-out" meant to prevent the escalation of his rage.
Lil Wayne should be commended for deploying the technique perfectly, taking action as soon as he heard the news. While most people who practice this skill take time-outs of 10 to 15 minutes, Weezy chose to extend his over several days, aware of his history of violence: The reason he was imprisoned in the first place was because he plead guilty to a class “D” violent felony of attempted criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree.
Was Lil Wayne just attempting to protect his lapsed bro from his inevitable wrath? If he was, then it definitely worked out: The pair have made over 30 tracks together, many of which were recorded after Weezy’s stint at Riker’s. His pacifist attitude didn’t end there: After a few violent hiccups, Weezy even managed to apply his self-discipline to his seemingly endless feud with the rapper Birdman, publicly announcing their reconciliation on Instagram earlier this year.
