Anger Management

I read this blog posting on atheist anger and found a part opf it that related to how I've been feeling in my personal life.

Because anger has driven every major movement for social change in this country, and probably in the world. The labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, the modern feminist movement, the gay rights movement, the anti-war movement in the Sixties, the anti-war movement today, you name it... all of them have had, as a major driving force, a tremendous amount of anger. Anger over injustice, anger over mistreatment and brutality, anger over helplessness.

I acted this weekend out of anger. Anger over decades of ignorance and miscommunication. Anger that all of my moderate efforts to bridge the gap were for nothing. Anger that my family is broken and nothing I have done to fix it seems to have worked. That anger boiled over and I expressed it in an effort to make things right.

Well, I'm not angry anymore. I have too many good and positive things in my life to waste any more time on trying to fix something that doesn't want to be fixed. My family is broken and it cannot be fixed. I cannot make it right so I am going to refocus my attentions on those things that I have gotten right. My wife. My daughter. My friends. They are my family. Those people who were my family. . . they are just the people I'll have to deal with occasionally over the phone or when a funeral comes up.

My anger has been replaced with a sadness. Opportunities that were not lost but were squelched and refused. Not my problem anymore. You chose the path of darkness. I have chosen to walk in the light and will reserve my anger for things that maybe, just maybe, I can fix.