ANGER VS. UNDERSTANDING

Last Thursday, July 17, I received a message. It was actually a reply to my e-mail and the sender was enraged against me. I was dumbfounded when I read the message and the first thing I did is go over my sent messages to see if I have written something that burst someone's bubble. I did not see anything, the fact that our conversation was not of quarrelsome issue but was rather a seek- help- support tête-à-tête regarding an approaching project. I just thought I was slapdash with my writing and I realized people are different in comprehension and it is a natural feedback for someone to react on something he feels to be wrong. But with all honesty my reply meant not to cause offense to anybody nor do I have any intention to insult or explode somebody's feeling. I always make it a point to keep rather unspoken or not write something to anyone because I am scared that I may utter something I will regret afterward. I believe in the old Chinese proverb that never write a letter when you are angry.

Jesus Christ also got angry when He squeezed out His outburst in the temple. But His anger was more of a "righteous indignation". Although everybody knows that anger is a sin it is an innate behavior of human being to get indignant. We rage at different intensities and anybody can become mad. It's no hard, but to be angry without basis and justifications, that is not within everybody's control. That is not easy. When anger escalates reflect on its aftereffects. It's like grabbing a hot coal with the intent of tossing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned or booting a stone harming your own foot. When I was still in my corporate life, when my daily routine involves the everyday toil of pressures , anxieties and squabbles with workmates and bosses I used to be angry almost everyday. I have learned through bitter experience that sometimes anger should be delayed in almost every possible way and situation to uphold relationship and friendship and let understanding sets in to takes its own course. I thought I was certain I understand what I thought somebody said, but I realized that what I heard is not what essentially what they meant. Sometimes I feel I am so intelligent but every so often I get the wrong end of the stick on what people are saying. I just thought I have the knowledge a lot about something and not really understand it. How many friends have I lost because of anger? How many times I made myself smaller than the things that made me angry? Of course we need sometimes to be angry especially so not to allow evil to be victorious or inequality and brutality to thrive. These things happen because many believe the world is not angry enough. But more than anger love and understanding can take its place to vanquish them and leads everything that hurt us to a better awareness of ourselves. Anyone can find faults, disparage, and attack anybody when he is angry but it takes understanding to take somebody's self control. We do not need power to let go of something. Or entombs anger to our inside and stock pile tensions for later implosion or explosion to offend ourselves or the others. What we really need is to understand. Anger destroys thing. It's an external manifestation of pain, trepidation and disappointment and the termination of struggle for the truth. When someone is angry he talks articulately as if he makes the best oration of his life. Anger makes someone clever but it keeps him poor- poorer in happiness because for every minute we are angry we lose 60 seconds of it. It is the air which puffs out the lamp of the mind, how can you think unmistakably when your knuckles are clamped and your teeth are crushing? Things will indeed seem different to us if we can only say "I am hurt" and opted to keep quiet and calm down and escape many days of sorrow rather getting angry so sudden. Understanding is the first step towards recuperation from anger. It appeases hurt and enraged feelings.

When Jesus blew up with rage that day in the temple. His indignation was up front. He reacted to the situation swiftly, optimistically, and fittingly then went on his business. His anger is right and justifiable. It's not easy to be indignant with the right person, and to the right extent, and at the right time, and for the right intention, and in the right way just as Jesus did.

My bitter experience of anger, tantrums and poor temperament being a moody artist then urged me to explore the beautiful gift of understanding. I still get angry but I have learned to control it; and I still try to yearn not to feel it. Now I do not easily get angry when a person gets mad at me, I always thought I cannot please everybody nor can I make a day in the sun for all. Instead, I never forget what somebody says to me when he is angry. Somehow I will be able to learn from it to become a better person. It made me believe that he who is slow to anger has great understanding. Anger and narrow mindedness are the enemies of it. A person who holds on to hasty mood leaves him less than he had been before while the calmness of the person on whom he wish to expel his ill temper conquers him... Sometimes you become great when a person misunderstood you. The most splendid pleasure is the joy of understanding . . .