People consumed with rage are not beautiful or pretty. Instead, they are scary, ugly and capable of inflicting great harm on themselves and others. It’s a very unpleasant feeling which can last for decades and tear families apart. Even in the short-term, it deprives you of your happiness and peace of mind. You can’t be angry plus happy and peaceful at the same time. You can only be one or the other.

So why do we do it? Self-focus, basically. We’re concentrating so much on ourselves and our own needs that we fail to take anyone else into account, or we don’t consider our inability to change many situations.

We get frustrated because we can’t bend the world to the way we want it, or want other people to stop annoying us. So it’s all about us. Can you imagine being angry whilst giving a gift, lovingly chosen, for someone? It can’t happen. Focusing on other people, rather than ourselves, destroys anger.

Let’s look at an example. Imagine that someone cuts you up at a roundabout. We might get angry and furious, how dare they charge in front – they should wait their turn !!! Well, perhaps that person is actually on the way to the hospital because they’ve just been told their dad has had a heart attack and might die any minute. If you knew that, would you have willingly let them in? Probably. So thinking about yourself led to anger, thinking of others destroyed that anger.

Perhaps the person wasn’t on their way to the hospital, maybe they were just an arrogant bully who thought they deserved the space because of who they thought they were. But your anger will not have changed them. The only effect it will have had is to make you very unappealing – ugly, scary and red in the face with no peace or happiness. And you got into that horrible state of mind for what benefit? Your actions did not change the situation or the arrogant bully one bit. In fact, he probably didn’t even notice, or might actually have enjoyed winding you up. He won, whereas you’re angry, upset and have lost. Next time, give him a cheery wave and a big smile, that’ll throw him! And you’ll stay happy and peaceful.

A question to ask is whether it’s worth destroying your happiness and peace to prove yourself right. Anger makes you ugly and bitter, whereas happiness and peace feel nice. The desire to always be right and prove it often comes from pride, which is a form of self-focus. But if it leads to anger – and therefore makes you ugly, unattractive and unhappy, what’s the point? If it doesn’t change the other person’s actions or behaviour and only makes you unhappy, why bother?

Besides, you might not even be right anyway…