Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Because I am Angry


It’s easy just to be angry at the whole world. Once you start, there’s no end to it – and you suddenly have a million reasons to justify your anger. The world is an unjust place. We all deserve happiness. And we all just wait for it to fall down on us from the sky and we’ll plunge in and swim in the ocean of euphoria.

But going back to anger… It’s easy to act like a little child who stomps his foot and yells, “I want it, I want it all, and I want it now!” Boy, do we all have an endless list of unsatisfied wishes. And once some of them come true, we quickly forget how badly we wanted them and move on to wanting yet even more desperately other things we are convinced we deserve in this life. I remember a girlfriend of mine who was single for years: once she finally got some kind of a boyfriend, she tried to get the most out of him to compensate herself for the loveless years. She wanted to be showered by his love, attention and generosity. She grasped him with the zest and energy he was unable to hold up to, so he removed himself from the picture pretty quickly.

I keep thinking about the constructive-destructive nature of our “I want”. It’s what’s driving us to move forward, progress and achieve success. It encourages us to learn and grow. But if we lose patience, if we get angry at the entire world for not getting what we want today instead of tomorrow, it’s a sure beginning of enormous discontent and self-destruction. We no longer notice or appreciate what we have – we are too busy focusing our attention on what we don’t have.

In these moments it’s useful to keep repeating this saying as mantra – the right things come in the right time. There are no random people in our life. And someone is hurting you only because you did your share of hurting in the past. You really have just one option – to try and become a better person. To suppress your anger. To forgive. To give love without asking for something in return. And as you begin to change, you will know for sure that you are moving in the right direction. It will feel right. Your ocean of happiness is right there waiting for you, stop hitting your imaginary breaks and you will discover a shortcut.

4 comments:

  1. Oh Aysel, I have learned that there is so much I don't know, so I am judging less and less about how things should be. Things that looked bad in the moment, that made me angry turned out to be a blessing in hindsight.
    I practice patience and I am learning that all is well even if it doesn't look like that in my eyes. I am also aware that my ego might have an agenda that doesn't serve me, so its anger might not serve me either. xox Wilma

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  2. Hi Wilma,

    As always it's nice to see you here :) . Here is what I don't quite understand:

    "I have learned that there is so much I don't know, so I am judging less and less about how things should be" - It implies that we have a pretty passive role in our own life and should just let things happen (or not happen). I have contradictory thoughts about anger and what needs to be done to get rid of it: take action to change the situation or cultivate acceptance and humility to minimize its impact. And sometimes I fear that there is a thin line between patience and passiveness.

    You are right that there is so much we don't know, the problem is I want to know. Living in semi-darkness is what we all do but I appreciate every ray of light or enlightenment so to say.

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  3. Thanks for asking Aysel.
    Anger is a judgment about a situation or person. I was angry when we did everything right and we didn't sell the house, when I wanted it to. I was angry with everyone. In hindsight there was a bigger plan at work apparently, recently we sold the house for a higher price and there were more advantages of having it sold now and not then.
    What I mean is that there are so many forces at work, we cannot see everything that is making our future. Hence we have to do our own things but we cannot orchestrate every little detail and we cannot foresee every surprise. Thus being angry with circumstances has no point. Some people were angry they missed a plane, to later hear it crashed. Still angry?
    Yes and sometimes anger is just the kick up the backside we need to get into action. But I would not rather have it overtake me.
    Is this useful? xox Wilma

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  4. "sometimes anger is just the kick up the backside we need to get into action." - so true, we often have a choice: do something or stay angry.

    I still wouldn't say everything happens (or doesn't happen) for the better. I could give a similar example - I was looking to buy air tickets to Europe. I waited for prices to go down but instead they kept going up. I ended up buying expensive tickets, angry with myself for not doing it earlier. But after I bought them, the prices went up even more. So I didn't do well, but could have done worse.

    Maybe anger is not the problem, but our poor self-control is (that's why we keep getting the signs that it needs to be improved). We may choose to be angry at everything and everyone, some people are constantly pissed off about the smallest things such as waiting in line, rainy weather, coffee that is too hot... I want to choose not to get angry because anger can suppress the rest of our emotions and become the sole ruler of our actions.

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