Anger and How To Seriously Manage It...Seriously

Winston Churchill once said and I quote, "A man is about as big as the things that make him angry", unquote. If Churchill is right then I must be as BIG as an ant since ants can seriously and quite easily make me angry especially when a horde of them start biting me. My guess is, Winston Churchill was never bitten by ants and I don't blame the ants as he was such an enormously, scary-looking man. Plus, he looked like a bulldog with all his fleshy jowls jiggling every time he talked. He might've looked like a bulldog and he might've been enormous but he was a damn excellent writer and his words moved the whole nation to fight off the invading Nazis during World War II. The following is an excerpt of one of his speeches :

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender...

See what I mean? His speeches were/are great!!!

Now going back to my topic - ANGER.
Apparently there are 3 ways how we can deal with our anger.

1. Expressing Anger - That sounds pretty easy, right? Wrong! Though this may be the healthiest way to deal with your anger, it is also the most difficult. We have to learn how to make clear what our needs are, and how to get them met, without hurting others in an assertive way. My sister actually came up with a brilliant, yet deliciously easy, idea on how to express your anger : If the person who makes you angry is a man, throw a stapler at him. If it is a woman, throw a big file at her and then run away and hide behind a cabinet. That is so much easier.

2. Suppressing Anger - This is only done by idiots who prefer to maintain peace at all cost no matter what the consequences would be. Suprressing anger is all about holding in your anger, stopping and think about it and then focussing on something positive. Is that brilliant or is that brilliant? Let me give you a hypothetical situation : Someone, say a very annoying colleague, makes you very angry and all you want to do is give him a piece of your mind and beat his head to a pulp with a jackhammer but instead you are required to hold in your anger, that means bite your tongue and then think about why you are angry and then start looking at his silly necktie (because that is the only positive thing about him) and say something nice about his tie, instead. Now there's a catch here. The more you suppress your anger, the more it would turn inward - on yourself. The unexpressed anger would manifest itself in the form of HIGH BP, HYPERTENSION and DEPRESSION. The S.O.B. not only got away without a single scratch on his body but your health would also suffer. Wouldn't it be so much cheaper to buy new staplers and new files than pay for medications? So, throw things...that's so much easier and better!

3. Calming yourself down - yeah right! This one requires some superhuman effort on your part. When someone makes you angry, you must take steps to control your heart rate, calm yourself down and let the feelings subside. I still prefer the Stapler and File Tactic any time of the day!

The problem with anger is you are the ONLY one who gets hurt in the end. The idiot who made you angry in the first place has no conscience whatsoever and thus he feels NO guilt. So, listen to the Lord Buddha's wise two cents : Holding on to anger is like grasping a HOT coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; YOU are the one who gets burned. In a nutshell, it basically means, YOU WOULD BE THE ONLY ONE WHO'D SUFFER. So, there's no point in being angry for a long time. There is a God and just say a few prayers and He would calm your heart and your spirit. But sure and this is my BEST advice, let your anger be known to the other person. You don't have to argue with the stupid fool...because when you argue with a fool you'll never win. First they'll bring you DOWN to their level then once you're there, they'll beat you with experience. IGNORE them. Don't mix with rude, annoying, negative, pessimistic people. Just be with people who make you happy and help you be the best that you can. Also, don't mix with LIARS! They are the WORST kind of people. They'll hurt you in the worst possible way. Just try to keep a healthy distance from them.

YOU are the MOST important person in YOUR life...take care of yourself and be HAPPY always. Read more about this in : Emotional Fitness by Consumer Association of Penang

Steps on how to manage anger will be added soon...just keep watching this space!

My Side of the Matter

That's the latest short story that I just finished reading. I never knew that Truman Capote was such an excellent writer. Had I known earlier, I would've bought most of his books and voraciously read all his writings. It is very humorous and my advice is : Read the story. I won't give tell you anything about it mainly because it is such a short story and is brilliantly written. Trust me it is worth every second of your precious reading time. The next book on my reading list is "Murder" by John Steinbeck which is just another short story. You might be wondering why the sudden interest in short stories. Well, truth be told, I went shopping yesterday and as usual, I went to Eaton's in Centre Point. For those who are unfamiliar with Eaton's, it's actually a bookshop. They sell mostly school/reference books but once in a very long while, they do have good ones up for grabs and I was one of the few very lucky souls to have found them. I wanted to buy all them but someone warned me not to do so and he promised me that he'd send his books to me all the way from Australia. All I have to do is make a list of books that I'm interested in. Ha! Am I lucky or am I LUCKY? I know...good things happen to good people. Ehem... Anyway, with that in mind, I purchased 4. Each costs RM6.90 which is nothing compared to all the face cream that I buy. ha ha I got myself...2 stars by Paul Theroux, Jeeves and the Impending Doom by PG Wodehouse, Murder by John Steinbeck and my favorite "My side of the Story" by Truman Capote. Lucky for me I bought all the books because my friend, the Malaysian pretending to be an Australian in OZ, just told me that he doesn't have those particular titles. Am I Lucky or am I Lucky? YES...indeed I am.
Now, I am off to read my Steinbeck.

A prayer for aging...

I don’t want to grow old God. I don’t want any part of it. But since I have no power to stop the clock, my prayer is this: Let me age with grace.
Show me the way, God. Be with me. Grant health to my body and clarity to my mind. Give me strength. Help me to overcome my vanity. Teach me to combat self-pity. Don’t allow me to become set in my ways. Shield me from isolation and from loneliness.
May the love of my family and friends be my reward for all the struggles of my youth.
Let all the blessings of age emanate from me. Let wisdom flow from my mouth, let compassion flow from my heart, let acts of kindness flow from my arms, let faith flow from my soul, let joy shine forth from my eyes. Amen.