Anger & Happiness

I was recently in a hotel. A man walked up to the front desk. He was extremely angry because the free breakfast that he had received was not what he had expected. He berated the clerk, dropping the “f” bomb repeatedly then became verbally abusive to others in the room. His wife stood by and said nothing. I got the sense that this was a fairly routine performance for her husband. He was pretty much the poster child for anger. He was not a happy camper.

I began to consider anger and how it affects us in living the life that we want to live.

So, look at the list below. Pick one thing from the list. Pick the thing you want the most…the thing that you would give up all of the others to achieve.

Wealth
Health
Power
Happiness
Respect
Love

I bet most people would choose happiness. Everything else on the list is a stepping stone toward happiness, but not a destination in itself. To look at it another way, what good is wealth, health, power, respect, or even love……..if it leads to unhappiness?

I often tell people that I have the most valuable skill set on the planet……..I have learned how to be happy. And yet, there are a great many people who are not happy. Being happy, it turns out, is not a common skill. Why?

Here is another list:

Anger
Jealousy
Vengeance
Greed
Laziness
Lust

These are things that we actively choose to do that lead us away from happiness. I would go so far as to say that the things on this list are incompatible with happiness. And yet, for the most part, they are things that we make a conscious decision to pursue. In effect, by choosing to pursue the things on this list, we are making a concious decision to be unhappy. The guy in the hotel that morning made a concious decision to be angry and the result was that he became unhappy. I can’t be sure, but I bet he is often unhappy.

Are there better choices that we can make…….choices that will lead us to happiness?

Here is the final list:

Kindness
Generosity
Love
Truth
Faith
Hope

Here is a list of things that we can choose to pursue that will lead to happiness. I am convinced that the surest road to happiness in this life is to love and actively care for your fellow man. And the converse is also true……….the surest road to unhappiness is anger.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things and the God of peace will be with you”

St. Paul, NIV

So…… what do I do when somebody attacks me or treats me badly? My first job is to protect myself and the best tool for protecting myself from angry people is distance. This includes angry bosses. After I put some distance between me and my attacker, then I should consider that my attacker must, almost by definition, be unhappy. It’s hard to do……..but there is room in my heart for a little sympathy for people who habitually make bad choices that cause them (and the people around them) to be unhappy.

What do you do when you find that you are angry……that you are hanging out on list #1? Just remember……….every minute of your life that you choose to be angry is a minute of happiness that you have intentionally thrown away………and you can never get that minute back.

It’s hard to beat St. Paul’s advice.