Quote of the Day - Anger

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured. – Mark Twain

Anger, as Twain points out, must be controlled to be effective. Otherwise it corrodes and destroys the wielder. It was true in ancient times. That was a theme in The Illiad, the wrath of Achilles. It remains true today. Look at the perpetual anger of the Never Trumpers and the Woke Folk. They are so busy being angry they do not seem to enjoy life.

It is why forgiveness is a central part of Christianity. Forgiveness requires you to let go of your anger and that you put it behind you. Forgiveness does not preclude punishment of those you forgive. It requires punishment to be proportionate to the harm inflicted, and that once it is finished, you leave your anger behind. Nor does forgiveness require future trust. Trust has to be earned, and cannot be gained through simple forgiveness.

Yes, anger is sometimes necessary. I was angry at what the Biden Administration was doing to this country throughout his administration. Rightfully so. Yet I tried to focus that anger into constructive purposes, particularly towards finding and supporting worthwhile conservative candidates in upcoming elections and replacing Biden as president at the earliest opportunity to prevent his doing further harm.

I recognized that lashing out blindly in anger furthered the goals of the Progressives and not my own purposes. (If people disagreed, I tried to persuade them rather than condemn them. It was hard at times.) Others did not and found themselves damaged by the corrosive power of their own anger.

Now that the storm has passed, it is easy to assume there will be no future need for anger. Yet circumstances will arise meriting future anger. The important thing is to channel and control that anger - to dominate it rather than allowing it to dominate you. To turn it towards constructive purposes.

Will that be easy? Of course not. Nothing truly worthwhile is easy. Yet the measure of being an adult is how you master the difficult and master yourself.