Anger

I started to write about the meditation class I took Thursday. It was my first time in that sort of class and I liked it. The topic was anger and the Buddhist nun who spoke had a lot to say about the topic. But, instead of writing about the class, I thought I'd write about Anger.

The nun essentially said that anger is a destructive force that makes us do childish, often cruel, things. She said that anger is the greatest evil.

Looking at my own life, I can see where this is true. I'm usually pretty mellow; but, when I get angry, I can become pretty cruel. I tend to hold it in and, when it finally surfaces, my anger is incommensurate with what ever has finally set me off. It's like all of the anger in me spills out on the person who has caused almost none of it, but happened to say the wrong thing at the wrong time.

There's this teacher at work who, to make a long story short, has not been re-hired for next year and has received a few unsatisfactory observations. I have been dealing with him as a site rep and agree with him that he has been treated unfairly. Now, mind, I think the guy has brought some of his troubles on himself-but he still has been treated unfairly.

One day, when I brought his grievance over for him to review, he began talking about lawsuits and how many other career opportunities were available to him and how much more money he could be making in any other business.

So he says, "I'm a devout Christian man. And the Bible tells me to be slow to anger. And I have been slow to anger, but now I'm angry."

Since then, his anger has caused him to scold some of our administrators and go over their heads and just try to cause trouble for those who could recommend him for re-hire, if they so chose.

And it dawned on me that he has completely misread that passage as saying that one should get angry slowly.

I think it means that you shouldn't let your anger make any of your decisions for you, because that's when you get childish and act foolishly. It feels good for a while, but only a while.

When it's all over, you have to live with the results an irrational decision.

Like my friend who quit his job a few years back because he got angry at his employers and felt that he couldn't take it anymore. He made sure that he burned all of his bridges and, when he tried to get a job later, couldn't find one for the longest time because employers most likely put the word out on him. When he finally got another job, it was outside of this county.

If he had been more diplomatic when leaving, or if he had gotten another job before quitting, things would have been different.