anger

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Why Are We Angry?


Anger can be a useful tool in our lives. But for the past 6 years, it seems the level of anger in this country has risen to an unacceptable level. You need only look at a few politicians to find the source of much of this anger at it root. But what has happened in turn is that Americans are simply getting angrier at other things as well.

Have you ever gotten angry at another driver on the road? Of course, you have. But why? Ironically, when I am driving and my wife is with me, she is the one who get angry at inconsiderate drivers and not me. I find this hilarious, but it is also a problem. Why is it I do not get angry at these drivers? It is simple, I have accepted the fact that there are a lot of fools driving on our roads. What can I do about it? Where the other driver is concerned, nothing. Where I am concerned, take it in stride and accept it. By doing this, I do not get stressed.

The golden rule says: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I take that very seriously. And so, I do a lot of little things that I hope will in turn make the other person at least smile. One thing I do is, when I am at a checkout counter at a store, I always say to the checkout person, “have a wonderful day.” Sometimes they do not acknowledge but that is all right. And other times I see them smile and respond in kind. Another thing I do is, I have this stack of $2 bills. I will always give a waitress one of them as a part of her tip. Since the $2 bill is not seen very much, many of them are amused and therefor a little bit happier.

But the question remains, how much anger is needed in our lives. In a perfect life the answer is none. That means that if we think through the problem which has caused our anger, we need only think of a solution, or, barring that, we need ask ourselves why are we getting angry? The kind of anger I most frequently get is towards our elected officials who do not seem to have the needs of their constituency at the forefront. That anger lasts for less than a minute once I realize there is little I can do about it except vote, and/or, write that person a letter explaining that discontent.

It is said that humans are social creatures. If you accept that, and that is what science tells us is the truth, then we must act as if we are always at a friend’s party and keep smiling and saying happy thoughts. If we are being drawn into a contentious conversation, we can simple excuse ourselves from it and find a happier place.

The bottom line is, trying justify anger is like trying to keep the tide from coming in.

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Resentments: A Recipe For Disaster


I think a lot of people have resentments and call them something else.  I mention that because I used to be one of those people.  When came to feeling evil towards someone, I was a master.  It never occurred to me, however, to ask myself what good it did me.

By and large, I had a really good childhood but even so, some really horrible things happened to me.  It would be easy to dismiss whatever resentments I formed because of those bad things except that I carried them around for half of my life.  My mother was the prime recipient of a number of those resentments.  She had earned some of the anger I felt but once I had vented that anger, which I did, she was no longer responsible.  You would never have known that from my actions however.  Most times resentments only hurt the person carrying them but in this case it hurt two people.  My mother deserved better than that and I did make amends to her for my actions before she died,   well before fortunately.

There is a saying about resentments, “It’s like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”  I drank from that poison many times always expecting the other person to feel something bad but the only one who ever felt badly was me.

It’s ironic.   figured out a long time ago the foolishness of jealousy, another of my shortcoming although I overcame that one early on in my adulthood.  I call it the most foolish emotion a person can have and only shows that person’s insecurities.  It would have been nice to have carried over that logic to my resentments, but I did not.

Mind you, I still get resentments but now I treat them like a minor injury.  I figure out what the source of the pain is and deal with it.  Almost without exception the source of the pain is from something within me.  What is happening is I am seeing something inside someone else that I hate within myself and that is how a resentment begins.  This is not to say that the person had not wronged me or done something to allow me to feel poorly towards them, but the resentment is a level of anger that is always uncalled for.  The resentment is self-flagellation at its worst.  The resentment is what takes up space in my head and eats at me in its desire to get out.  The resentment is what has pushed me into making too many bad decisions.

I still feel the resentment come over me but when I do an alarm goes off in my head and I tell myself it is time to take action.  As I said before the first thing I do is find the source of the resentment.   Then once I have identified the other person’s part in it, I forgive them in the sense that I tell myself that whatever they are doing has nothing to do with, or that they are fighting some demon within themself and it is presenting itself in this unflattering manner.  Most of the time I eliminate the resentment by simply telling myself that they have a problem and I’m not it.

So here is the thing; it is okay to be angry, as angry as you need.  But get over it as quickly as you can because anger is like milk left out too long.  After a while it curdles and smells bad and turns into something else, something ugly.

 

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Life is Messy


Every now and then someone relates some of their family history and the crazy things that happen within their family. They present the story as a sort of “see how crazy my family is!”  My response is always the same, “all families are crazy, it’s just a matter of degree.”  By extension, that means all normal families are crazy.  It is just a matter of the details peculiar to that family. But in general, they are just simply crazy.

A few years ago a friend of mine was telling me about a part of her life she was not too proud of.  She had spent a week in jail once.  To say I was shocked is an understatement.  You see, she is someone everyone sees as the all American mom sort.  She is happily married, has two young children, and an MBA degree which helps her to a very substantial income.  When I asked her what she went to jail for, she very nonchalantly said it was for larceny over $200.  It turns out it was actually her boyfriend who had done the theft but she was present when it happened.  She pleaded out and got time served plus two years of probation.  If I were to show you a picture of her today with her husband and kids you would probably say, “no way!”

I had another friend who died about six years ago from lung cancer.   It turns out that his cancer was quite curable but a lack of early treatment, doctor’s fault, caused it to move to other organs.  He sued and won, of course.  I remember saying to him that he must really be angry.  The doctor had served a death sentence upon him.  He told me he was at first and then he came to terms with it.  When I asked him how you come to terms with having your life ended prematurely he said, “life is messy.”  I didn’t get it at first but after a lot of reflection I did.  He had arrived at a point where staying angry served no useful purpose and he wanted to enjoy the time he had left.  He enjoyed it, richly.

I thought about that for a long time, years.  I have come to the conclusion that life, external of human manipulation, is always and ultimately fair.  I hear people say how unfair something is.  A person dies in his 40s from cancer and they say how unfair that is.  But it is fair.  It is not like cancer decides to pick on a particular individual while sparing another.  It doesn’t.  It is not different from the flu.  Some get it, some don’t.  These things can be very sad, but they are always fair.

Most people are good.  They follow the rules, are usually polite, and give when they can.  We all, at one time or another, cross paths with someone who is not good.  They cause us grief and pain.  Sometimes it costs us money, other times health, and other times peace of mind.  These people can cause a serious mess in our lives but if we allow it to be anything more than the messiness of life, then we allow it to have more power over us than is right.

You hear people say “shit happens.”  That is way to negative for me.  I prefer “life happens.”  Some of it is not much fun though.  But I have found that by seeing life as a never-ending series of events, many of which are messy, then it is difficult for life to pitch me a curve ball I can’t handle.

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You Can Be Happy But Only If You Want To


I spent too much of my life being unhappy for no good reason.  I had plenty of bad things happen to me, which I was quick to point out, and I used those things as reasons for not being happy.  What a bunch of crap that was!

What I have found out at this end of my life is there are only a few things I need to do to be really happy.  But there are also a lot of things I need to be aware of that keep me from being as happy as is possible.

I used to do a lot of things that got between me and happiness.  First, I used to stare at the past and bemoan it.  What I mean is, I would look at the various bad things that happened and feel sorry for myself.  Instead of using them as learning experiences, I allowed them to take me over and rule my feelings.  What I did not seem to understand was that I could not do a thing about what had happened to me.  And if I did not allow the past to negatively affect me, it would not.  I also used the “what if” or “if only” in looking over my past.  I would say “what if I had done this” or “if only I had not done that” and generally sit on the pity pot whining.  What I should have said to myself was, “You know what?  What happened to you was really crappy.  Now, do all in your power to see that it does not happen again and move on!”

Resentments cause people more loss of sleep and more distress than is necessary.  A resentment is me drinking some poison when I think badly of someone else and waiting for them to be affected by the poison.  I know, it is nuts!  But that is what we do when we decide to cop a resentment.  What good does it do?  None!  But I have also found that too my of my resentments are me seeing something in some else that I hate because it is something in me I hate.  If I find myself heading towards a resentment these days I stop myself.  I have far better things to do with my thinking time.  Resentments are never happy things and I simply do not have the time to waste on unhappy things.

There are some other things I do to keep myself happy.  I seldom take things personally even when it appears someone is launching a personal attack against me.  I have found that most times those people have something else going on and I am a convenient target at that moment.  At such times I remind myself that most likely the person has issues they are dealing with and I just let the whole incident go.  I definitely do not get into a fight with them, and allow them to “win” if that is what they are after.  It does not happen a lot that I need to defend a position.

These days I truly believe that I know it is going to be a good day simply because I woke up that day.  That might sound strange, but consider the alternative.  I see the beginning of every day as a chance to enjoy something.  Most days I find lots of things.  Animals are always a great source of pleasure.  I simply watch them moving around doing whatever.  The question in my mind at such times is “what are they doing?”  or I simply think that what they are doing is interesting.  More importantly, I have found that my energy level is generally reflected back in the animal’s actions.  If I am calm, so are they.

I seldom get angry.  What is the point?  How many things can happen to me in a year, let alone a day, that require my anger?  The key word in that sentence is “require.”  I think it entirely human for anger to flare from time-to-time but it is how I deal with it that makes all the difference.  It is very seldom that I truly have any need to show or voice my anger.  When I feel my anger rising I am quick to ask myself if it is truly necessary.  Usually the answer is no.

I find it very easy to let things go these day.  Recently I have had some things stolen from me and I got angry over it.  I despise theft.  But after my brief visit with anger I work hard to get over it and let it go.  People who would steal from me are just sick.  There is nothing I can do about them.  More importantly, I let go of the idea long ago that I have much control over anything after I finish controlling myself.  This is particularly true of other people.  I can let it be known how I feel and that I wish someone to act differently but I cannot force them to acquiesce to my desires.  That means, once I have let my desires know, I let go of whatever it is that has prompted me to be vocal.  That means I usually quickly forget whatever it was that bothered me in the first place.  I have moved on to more important things.

When someone requests my help I usually give it to them.  This is something that makes me really happy.  I consider it a gift when someone desires my help considering they could request it from so many others.  Even more, I expect nothing in return.  And most of the time, I refuse anything in return.  That mostly happens when someone offers me money.  I am really happy that they simply say thank you.  That makes my time given them a gift.  There is an old saying, you have to give it away to get it.  Whatever I give to someone I find gets returned to me many many times over.

I have also decided that loneliness is generally something that can be overcome quickly.  Most of the time I know when I am going to be alone.  It is at those times that I have made plans to have something to amuse myself with.  Frequently that means I have a book with me.

I really believe that most home runs are hit when you are thrown a curve.  It certainly is true in baseball so why not in life?  When life throws me a curve, is that not a time for me to shine and show what I can do?

I think life is really mostly about what you make of it.  If you are going to be angry, morose, petty, vindictive, resentful, and a host of other negative things, you are not going to be left with much time to be happy.  Our negative feelings are just reminders that we need to be happy.