The results are in…

And there are a lot of angry people in the world right now.

If you ask these angry people, they’ll tell you exactly what they’re angry about.  They’ll tell you in such a way that you’ll feel their anger is justified—and it very well might be.

They’ll point their finger and say “That’s the reason! It’s because of xyz!”

But, is it really?

Did that “thing” out over there really produce feelings of anger in this person?

Or, was that just a trigger—an excuse to exercise the emotion?

Think about a time you were angry about something.  A time when you held hatred in your heart.  Didn’t your own friends, family, and loved ones seem cold, distant, and annoying?

It’s very likely that the simplest things, things you would normally find humor in, irritated the crap out of you—further adding fuel to the fire that was your anger or hatred.

Feelings want to be processed or expressed, especially negative ones.  When they’re not, bad things happen—like the deterioration of one’s health, or unconscious outbursts of rage.

The expression of anger is really just repressed feelings—usually from anxiety, shame, fear, sadness, jealousy, etc.

The thing about anger is it comes wrapped in the illusion that it’s something outside us that’s causing this feeling when really the source is some unseen problem within ourselves.

This doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be angry about in this world.

There’s lots of corruption, injustice, cruelty, and many other problems we face today.  But, the proper responses to problems are solutions—not anger.

Angry people rarely come up with good solutions.

If you feel anger towards something, welcome to the club.  We’re human here.  It happens, and being angry doesn’t make any one of us more special.

The way to deal with anger isn’t suppression.  And thanks to recent science, we know the expression of it isn’t good either.

To avoid long-term consequences and deal with anger in the best way possible, we counter it with its antidotes: patience, understanding, and tolerance.

There’s no reason to punish ourselves for the things that are wrong in this world. 

Because, well, that’s what holding onto anger does. 

“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.”
— Thomas à Kempis

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Anger is a natural response to being treated badly or having your boundaries crossed.  It’s healthy to feel it. 

What’s not healthy is hanging onto anger.  That’s how hatred begins to take root within you.  Hatred draws its nourishment from anger, and although anger may be transmuted into something good and productive, hatred cannot. 

Use anger.  Don’t let it use you.