Bruce Kasanoff* says anger should be treated like a hand grenade — you shouldn’t use it anywhere you wouldn’t toss a live bomb.
It’s your anniversary, and you are taking your significant other to their favourite restaurant, one you had to reserve months in advance.
However, the restaurant messed up and double-booked that special table in the corner by the fire, the one they promised you.
At first, you are calm but firm. You explain the circumstances. You show them the confirmation email they sent you five months ago. It doesn’t work.
They offer you a table right by the kitchen door or a voucher to come back another night.
That last offer triggers you. Another night? They’re not listening to me! You go ballistic.
You get the table, but by this time your partner is humiliated and has left.
The things we win with anger are not ours. They will never be ours, even if we get to use them for a while.
First of all, we are not here to possess every treasure and magical outcome that our minds can dream up.
For a while, we can borrow such things by intimidating others, but in the long run we will never be fulfilled by them.
Second, anger makes us stupid. Anything we get through stupidity is the result of sheer luck. Such a victory might make you happy, but not for long.
I write these words not as someone who has forever abandoned anger, but as someone who is struggling to end my habit of getting mad when I am pushed too hard.
I still harbor the misconception that ‘fighting back’ is the same as being strong. It’s not.
Strength is having the moral fortitude to accept an apology along with an invitation to come back another time, and walk down the street to another restaurant.
“This is wonderful,” you might say to your partner. “Now we get to celebrate our anniversary twice.”
Anger is the equivalent of a hand grenade; you shouldn’t use it anywhere you wouldn’t toss a live grenade.
I want to thank Leadership Coach, Terry Jackson for inspiring me to write this article.
Terry shared his habit of working very hard to live at higher frequencies, which got me thinking… and this is the result.
For example, love and happiness are high-frequency emotions; anger and fear are low-frequency emotions.
I am learning a lot from Terry.
*Bruce Kasanoff is the founder of The Journey, a newsletter for positive, uplifting and accomplished professionals. He can be contacted at kasanoff.com.
This article first appeared at kasanoff.com
