I am not angry that this is the last day of Anger Week!
If you think you are saving a marriage, a job, a relationship, or anything else by suppressing a legitimate feeling of anger, you might find you are mistaken. Note I say the word ‘suppress’. You won’t be mistaken if you feel anger, realize it’s not legit, or you can see through it to understanding. But if you feel the anger, feel it is legit, hold on to it but THEN decide not to say anything, then guess what? It is very likely it will not go away. You may put it on the shelf, it’s true. But if you didn’t make peace with it in some manner, it will be there on the shelf, ready to take down and throw at a moment’s notice.
That doesn’t mean you have to rant and rave and express your anger in a mean or violent way. You can express anger calmly and with some reasoning. Often it’s best if you can do it that way. But if something is bugging you, it really is best if you let the other person know then get over it.
The last thing anyone needs is an old offense dragged out on display when it is only your inability to move on that made it come out.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Colin Powell, 1937- not dead yet, American Secretary of State (2001-2005)
If you want to have HOPE, make sure you know how to raise both ANGER and COURAGE to be equals. Anger if left to run riot will find fault with everything and everybody but never feel the need or ability to do anything about it. Courage left to dominate will be indiscriminate and undisciplined in how she helps others. But if they are raised as equals they will help each other make something real and good happen in the world, and really that’s our HOPE after all, right?
In spite of myself, we have reached day 3 of Anger Week at the NDD.
The second half of the quote is,
“…it is an impotent fury conscious of its impotence.”
There is a new TV show being advertised this summer. It’s called ‘Revenge’ and it’s all about a young woman who is going to get back at all the bad people in the beautiful Hamptons of New York who did her and her family wrong. She will obviously watch with glee as she spites those terrible wrong doers, finding nefarious ways to do them in.
She also will have no room in her brain for love, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, courage, maturity or kindness. Any time she does show those things it will be an act. It will be just another in a long line of entertainments about someone getting satisfaction by spiting someone.What amount of time do you take to think about how to hurt another person, either in secret in the form of spite and revenge, or in their face? What will you get from it? What are you missing out on because your brain is filled with those thoughts?
Forget what it would do for the object of your spite, moving on is the best thing you can do for yourself.
I remember my parents always arguing. My father especially was angry often. I never could figure out what good it did.
I remember being very attracted to this one young woman after college. We didn’t argue or fight in our relationship. I liked that so I married her.
I remember having a conversation with her about me being angry about something. She said she didn’t understand why I was angry, ranting and raving about whatever it was. Her question to me was ‘What good does it do?’
I remember my answer. It doesn’t have to DO any good. The good is in how good it feels to just get it out, to just express myself. That by doing that, I let go of the anger and it goes away. She said, ‘Then why does it come back? It doesn’t actually seem to do what you say it does. You don’t get rid of it.’
I remember so many years of my first marriage, thinking we were doing well and she was happy because we didn’t argue or get angry very often at each other, if at all.
I remember realizing that wasn’t true. She wasn’t happy, she was just unwilling to argue and get angry about the situation, bottling it up instead until it was too late.
I remember when we got divorced. I was explaining the situation to a friend. I was going over our thought processes and how we communicated various things. She got mad at me because we weren’t getting mad at each other. She said we should be angry; yelling and arguing about all these things we were discussing calmly. I told her I didn’t do that because I couldn’t figure out what good it would do.
“Two things a person should never be angry at; what he can help, and what he cannot help.” – William A. Ward
I recently made a trip to Tucson to deal with one of my daughters, who had not been in communication for a long time. She was found and her circumstances are pretty trying, just above homeless as a matter of fact. There are some good things that came of the trip, including her getting an initial evaluation and us meeting her friends and her landlord. There is a lot of confidence that she has a number of people helping her. But it isn’t the same as having her in your own town, close by, to give direct help as needed. It isn’t the same as family. But we were only able to do so much. And the result is to be reminded once again of this quote, that anger, while a true emotion and legitimate, is often something that doesn’t lead to much value for the future. It can, but most often it is not, IMHO.
