A Bitter Pill to Swallow

f you’re angry, you’re losing;
If you’re bitter, you’ve lost.

Getting angry is often seen as losing control. It isn’t. When you get angry, you have already lost control and it is your effort to get it back after you’ve lost it. Getting angry is the equivalent of a temper tantrum, where something gets taken away or is not given to an infant and that baby feels mortally wounded. The tantrum is an effort to get whatever it needs to stop the emotional hemorrhaging that the baby feels from that wound.

Getting angry may frighten people into giving you what you want in the short run, but it will take away their trust and respect in the long run. Over time, frequent anger has nowhere to go, but to harden into bitterness at which point it not only takes others’ trust, and respect away, it takes and keeps them away as they try to avoid you.

© 2007 Mark Goulston

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