The results are in…

And there’s 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. Probably, 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 cause this person to be angry?

Or, was that just a trigger—an excuse to pour out emotions?

Think about a time you were angry about something. A time where 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 dealt with or expressed, especially negative ones. When they’re not, bad things happen—like the deterioration of one’s health, or uncontrollable outbursts of anger.

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.

Yes, there’s a lot of corruption, injustice, cruelty, and many other problems we face today. However, 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, we must deal with anger by countering 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 anger is.

“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