Once I heard someone say: ‘Not even if I killed a thousand people would my anger let up.’ This is what we can call ‘efficient’ anger. It is lethal. It destroys, little by little, the person who harbors it. This person one day caught what seemed to be her husband committing adultery and from there on her life was a dead end. She cut off any romantic involvement with her spouse. She violently attacked him many times over the following years. The spouse did not retaliate and she continued to verbally abuse him frequently. Their children shunned the domestic environment to avoid witnessing the fights and eventually moved away, as soon as they could to live separately.
The angry person went on to have difficulty sleeping at night, even with the use of psychiatric medications. Then she lost the capacity to work outside of her home. As painful as it may be to catch adultery in the act, it is insane to live thereafter in the wake of a never ending revenge. Instead of destroying the one who caused such deception, pain, and offense, it backfires, and the aggressor is ultimately the one being destroyed. To live stewing in hatred, grief, or resentment, unable to sleep or work, to relax and have a laugh is utter and involuntary self-destruction. If nothing else then out of pure selfishness is it necessary to throw water into this boiling pot. Nothing constructive will come out of it.
‘Not even if I killed him a thousand times would my anger let up. This person has to suffer in order to pay for the suffering he has caused me and for no good reason either. I was always faithful.’ A justifiable anger, some would say. Without a doubt; understandable. Without even less of a doubt; blind anger as well. If I harbor a feeling that keeps me from living, working, sleeping, smiling, benefiting from the joy of living, then the error is my own. To hold tightly onto a burning hot coal that never cools down. I scream and cry in pain, but I do not let go. The coal keeps on burning. In the desire for revenge, in the desire to get even, I am totally consumed. I lose my life in the vain attempt to restore my wounded self image, my personal pride.
In another, less dramatic case, the results were similar. The person worked for many years in a business establishment without any significant problems ever occurring. One day his boss accused him of committing small thefts of which he was not the culprit. He justified himself in view of the situation and continued working there, but kept with him a serious and closed demeanor most of the time. Many months later the boss fired him because he was tired of this person’s ill-humored physiognomy.
From the day that this person was wrongfully accused forward, he began to have insomnia and experience intense pain throughout his body without any identifiable organic cause. This lasted throughout the time he remained at his job and continued after his resignation as well and which led to a disability for new employment.
Here we have a phenomenon similar to the previous one. There were no attitudes here of revenge, no verbally aggressive clashes. But the life of this person froze the day he was wrongfully accused. He began to live mostly shut inside of himself, inside of the anger, sorrow, resentment and deception. Everything became poisoned inside of him. He lost sleep and the chronic tension caused him constant bodily pain.
If we are unable to circumvent ourselves in the face of the inevitable, life will tumble us over and we don’t get back up again. The flexible tree, fustigated by strong wind, bends over but does not break, while the hardened, stiffer tree is ripped out from under its roots.
There are people who wrong us and who will never recognize their error. There are people who abandon us and who will never come back. There are people or situations which have gravely wounded us bodily, financially, or emotionally and there will be no payment or compensation.
I carefully observe the life of trees from all around the city. I love big trees. Most of the trees, after having their trunk cut off close to the ground, dry up and die. But there are some species which possess a stubborn vitality. They are cut 30 centimeters from the ground and sprout up again with new life soon after. From the remaining underground roots, the new tree develops and becomes adult once again.
If we have higher goals other than financial, marital, and professional success, we can be reborn in the face of great losses. We can discover new paths in our professional and love lives. We can develop new skills and other interests, even with the bodily limitations that the illnesses or accidents may have imposed on us.
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