Anger Management

What to do with 'nagging' anger?

I believe that anger is something that should be temporary in most cases. I’ve never had much interest in people who harbor grudges, or worse yet, the types that appoint themselves Karma sheriff and set out to make sure the deserving get their comeuppance.

My philosophy is that in the present we should only really care about the things that we’ll still care about when laying on our deathbed. Chances are the petty grievances we have with family members and co-workers won’t matter much to us as we contemplate our lives from the vantage point of our last breath. I suspect that most of us will be wondering whether we were good friends, good parents, etc. So I try to put things in perspective and keep lasting anger at bay.

But sometimes...

...sometimes anger makes a strong fight to stay in the foreground of mood and conscience. It becomes difficult to overcome when someone else makes a mistake that affects us in a negative way. I can handle it when I screw up my own affairs, but others aren’t so welcome to do the same. Especially when the consequences are irreversible.

It’s a small thing really-

My wife decided that our Tivo memory was full of too many old programs last night and decided to do some drastic housecleaning. If she had taken the time to look at what she was deleting I’m sure she wouldn’t have dusted the only record of the only national TV appearances ever done by yours truly. But she didn’t bother to look and they’re gone forever.

I haven’t looked at those things in years and I have no idea why I wanted them there to begin with. Perhaps I thought my grandchildren would see them or some such nonsense. But the irreversibility of the whole thing was frustrating and old-man anger tugged hard at my afternoon mood.

He said, “stop being so rational and keep sulking- you have the right- that bitch screwed you up!” And he had a good argument that I found convincing for a half-hour or so.

But then I came to my senses and realized, as usual, that seething anger is a waste of time. Those shows are gone and they ain’t coming back no matter how much I pout about it. Then the realization hit me that I would eventually get over it.

And so long as I’ll eventually get over it- I might as well immediately get over it. To do otherwise (seething & pouting) is simply a waste of time.

And that was it- the anger was gone.

Poof!

The power of rational thought can be quite awesome.

Besides:
I hear Einstein used to make a habit out of throwing away all of his notes every few years in an effort to keep his work fresh and sharp.

Chances are my wife didn’t toss anything that was as important as Einstein’s notes- although that first dust-up with Michael Medved and Bill Press on CNBC was pretty good.

Oh well.