Do you remember the last time you were angry?
Last week when I had to wait 45 minutes to see the doctor, I was really angry. Like any reasonable person, I do understand that there are valid reasons why people are sometimes late for appointments. The problem is that in the five years I’ve seen this doctor, she was always late. Anything from 15 to 20 minutes, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was when I had to wait for almost an hour and she just said: “Today is one of those days.” I was fuming.
So why was I so angry? Because I will do anything in my power to be on time for an appointment. Because I felt disrespected. Because I let her get away with it in the past even though I always told her that she was late for the appointment. Because when I saw three other doctors in the same clinic when she was not available, I was helped on time except once when I waited for 5 minutes.
An assertive person would not have waited as long as I have to do something about what was clearly a problem and I was fooling myself that I was getting better at asserting myself. This time I lodged a complaint and I am going to find another doctor.
Patience is a virtue that I am working on. I hate waiting. If you give me an appointed time to be somewhere, I need you to keep it. If there is a reason why you are running late, I would like to know what it is before you turn up eventually and I expect an apology as well.
Generally, I am slow to anger and there are not many things that irritate me. I am an empathetic person and can understand other people’s challenges. At the age I am, I do not expect anybody to be perfect, I certainly am not. To see somebody’s point of view and understand where they are coming from, comes relatively easy for me. I do not expect everybody to agree with me and I can readily agree to disagree with someone.
Everybody has the right to own their feelings and we all get angry. The problem is holding on to or suppressing it. I wrote in another blog how, as a child, I was not allowed to show anger; it was seen as disrespectful. It still is a struggle for me to express anger in a healthy way instead of swallowing it. Letting go of this negative emotion is not easy, but we need to learn how because if we don’t, it will harm us.
The story of the Buddha and the angry man will change your perspective on anger:
Once Buddha was traveling to a village to speak to the people there and everyone was happy to see him and listened to him with great dedication. One young man, however, was not at all happy to see him. He believed that Buddha was a fake master fooling the masses.
While Buddha was delivering his speech, the young man started shouting in a very rude manner. Buddha did not pay any attention to him and continued talking. This made the young man even angrier.
At the end of the speech, the young man confronted Buddha and became insulting. He shouted: “You have no right to teach others. You are as stupid as anyone else so stop fooling everyone. You are fake!”
The people tried to overpower the young man to get him to stop, but Buddha said to them: “It is not always necessary to counter aggression with aggression.” He then turned to the young man and asked him: Tell me, if you buy a gift for someone and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong?”
“It would belong to me because I bought the gift”’ answered the young man. The Buddha smiled and said: “That is correct, and it is the same as your anger. If you are angry with me and I do not feel insulted, then the anger falls back on you. You are the one who becomes unhappy, not me. All you have done is hurt yourself.”
(The mind’s journal.com; Steven Drake)
Sometimes we say and do hurtful things when angry and in the end, it comes back to bite us. The saying that” Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die” rings true. When we fly off the handle, we are controlled by our anger and could make a fool of ourselves.
There are many ways to control and channel anger and it certainly is a useful skill to hone.
Love and light till we chat again.
Shirley Rose
Themindsjournal.com (Steven Drake); Quotes from Pinterest.