Let’s face it, we all get angry from time to time. It’s a normal human response to life
events. Anger though is a worthless,
wasted emotion. As a human we also can
choose how we deal with the anger. We
don’t have to have outburst, or go beat up the guy across the street. When I was younger I let anger control
me. I was young and I hadn’t learned
what I know now. I would lash out,
scream, pound my fist and even in some cases seek revenge on whomever or
whatever situation made me angry. Now I’m
not saying that the thought of doing those things still doesn’t cross my mind,
because they do. Every now and again I
even find myself starting to get high toned and ready to let go, but I try to
stop myself. Now not only do I find that
I have more peace in my life with my approach to life, but I’m also probably
better off for it on other avenues as well.
I mean in today’s time people will shoot you for looking at them wrong
let alone going off on them. Then there
is our justice system which is proving that it is blind in these ages. Even if you are the wronged party you could
end up in jail or with a record you don’t need.
Over the last few years I have learned to look at the event, the person
or persons involved and even my own role in the situation and try to evaluate
it before I explode. I find most of the
time I can talk calmly and keep my peace and wits about me. I try to talk to the party about it if it
really bothers me. Yelling and screaming
or even hitting someone rarely and I doubt ever really solves any issue. It took time to master the art of doing
this. I had to learn by holding my
breath… Walking away, counting to ten and here’s the hard part… I had to learn
to see my own part in the situation. I
had to find my own blame. An example I
am going to use would be from this past Sunday. My baby and I were scrapping as we do and
usually people are cool. A lot of them
will bring us stuff. A guy waived us
down and gave us a grill to scrap this past week. It was a beautiful day and whether we find
stuff or not it’s a time I enjoy greatly getting to just talk and be
together. God is always good to us and
we are thankful to Him for all that he provides. As we were ending our route we do we stopped
waiting for this car that had its lights on that was backing out of a drive and
we didn’t wait long but he wasn’t pulling out.
So, we pulled over to the curb on the opposite side of his drive to pick
up scrap metal. As he backed out of the
drive Jack even said I bet he’s pissed off we are sitting here. Well he drove two houses down and just
stopped in the road. Where we were didn’t
hamper him from getting out of his drive at all. It had no effect on him, but here was this
guy letting this beautiful day be wasted by getting mad because we existed in
his universe. The people at the house
came home and we moved out of the front of their drive way. They were very nice and we have a date next
week to go back and pick up some stuff from them set up. The man in the car put his car in reverse, yes,
he had set there all that time, and got out of his car and approached his
neighbors and Jack. He went off on Jack
and told him if he set stuff out that he best not catch him getting it. Yup, ignorant ass. The gentleman’s neighbor told him she invited
us there and that he just needed to go away.
We were not hurting this guy one bit, but yes, I can see how us stopping
behind him as he pulled out might have upset him, even though we were not in
his way. Before leaving this guy
verbally threatened Jack. He threated to
beat his ass. I found it a little
amusing that this guy was that angry over something so stupid but my baby didn’t
like being threatened, but he didn’t do anything out of respect for the
neighbor that was standing there with him.
She even told him to ignore the guy.
This guy really was stupid. What
if Jack had a temper and a gun? That is
the way things are these days? What if
we choose to bring charges for the assault threat? This guy was not so smart. Bringing charges would just have him feuding
with the neighbor though and they are being nice to us so that wouldn’t be a
way to repay them. Now if this bothered
the guy so much he had to say something to feel better he could have simply
stopped and said “hey can you please not pull over in front of my drive next
time? I would appreciate it.” How hard would it be for the world to use
kindness instead of hate, rage and anger?
Or if the anger were deep maybe he could go to the gym and take it out
on a treadmill. That would have been
productive. The way he did it was very
negative and in the end probably left him regretful. If it were me I’d be fearful in these times
too. You never know who you’re talking
to these days and what they will do if you upset them. Lucky for him we are God fearing people who
love the Lord and his word. What if we
weren’t? Where would that leave
him? Thinking before you act or speak is
a long-lost art I think. Anger is a
wasted emotion. Anger unless righteous
only tears down and destroys the person who is angry and everyone and
everything in their path of rage. Let it
go and see how much better you will fair and feel. ---
*informational – When garbage, scrap, old furniture, etc.
is placed at the curb for the garbage man to collect it becomes public domain
and is free for the taking.
