Anger is a Powerful Emotion

Anger is a very powerful emotion.

And we'd all be better off without it.

For anger can lead to violence - both physical and emotional - against even the ones we love the most.

And the consequences of anger are very often, irredeemable and irreversible.

A man was coming out of his house to admire his new truck. To his horror, he saw his three-year-old son hammering dents into the shiny paint.

The man ran to the boy, knocked him away, then hammered his son's hands into a pulp as punishment.

When the father finally calmed down, he rushed his son to the hospital.

Although the doctor tried desperately to save the crushed bones, he
eventually had to amputate the fingers from the boy's hands.

When the boy woke up after surgery and saw his bandaged stubs, he innocently asked his father, "Daddy, I'm sorry about your truck."

Then he asked, "But when are my fingers going to grow back?"

The father went home and killed himself.

Another stupid mistake of course, but he couldn't withstand the violence he had brought upon his son, and the guilt that resulted.

A boy who has to live his life without fingers… and a lost life. All because of a truck.

It's ridiculous as an afterthought of course. But many many of us fall prey to anger everyday.

The neighbour who rings your doorbell repeatedly.

The family member who spills gravy on your thigh.

The child who cries in the theatre.

The love, that is once demolished, may not have the strength to come back.

No one is perfect.

Not your family members, not your friends, not your partner, and most definitely, not YOU.

Everyone makes mistakes.

But only a meagre few forgive them.

An act in a fit of anger takes but a moment… but its ghost will haunt you forever.

Don't be too quick to respond.

Ponder. Be patient. Understand.

And love.

No one is beyond redemption. Not even you.

Easing your emotion load...

Are you carrying around unnecessary weight?

No, I'm not referring to excess fat? most of us carry around burdens of a different kind.

These burdens we cannot see or touch, but they weigh us down just the same, preventing our hearts and minds from finding greater joy and peace of mind.

These emotional burdens mainly consist of regrets over what we wanted to happen but didn't, agony over past events that we wished never happened, resentment for people we feel have done us wrong, who didn't show us the respect we expected, or didn't love us the way we wanted them to.

These things are like invisible claws that keep our spirits anchored to the ground.

We find that we cannot be happy or peaceful for very long because they keep returning to haunt us.

Regret and resentment are the biggest adversaries of our happiness.

They have so much power over us because we cannot bring ourselves to forgive the people we begrudge, because we cannot forgive ourselves, because we cannot let go of the past.

We continue to hold regret and resentment towards others because, bizarrely, we feel that in this way, we can somehow make them suffer. But it's no skin off their noses. In the meantime, our own bitterness persists. It's cruel irony that in trying to get back at others, we only end up hurting ourselves.

The only way you can reduce or get rid of regret and resentment is to forgive.

Forgive the ones whom you feel have trespassed against you. Forgive yourself for the things you did, for the things you didn't do. Forgive the circumstances, events and conditions you thought led to your situation.

Remember that bearing grudges hurts no one but you.
Besides, it's never clear-cut if someone or something is completely responsible for our situation.

It's often a combination of factors. We judge harshly because we do not see the mitigating reasons. And whether we know it or not, we ourselves have hurt or let others down before.

If we can so clearly see the misdeeds others have perpetrated against us, surely others can just as vividly see the offences in us. Which one of us can claim to have no flaws, to have never acted selfishly or in a fit of anger?

Purge your soul of the toxins of regret and resentment and embrace greater joy and peace.

Contibuted by Slice of Life, Eugene Loh