Anger

"Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." - J.R.R. Tolkien

I wish right now that the above quote related to me. For the past few months, I have become angry, with brief periods of sanity, and unfortunately, I'm not a wizard, and so have no excuse.

I have a book on my shelf that my mother gave me several years ago titled "The Dance of Anger." It's a self-help book promoting good ways for women to express their anger, since we have a tendency to hold things in, thus denying ourselves, or burst out violently, thus living up to the "bitch" label given to lots of us. I have read some of the book, and am not ready to claim it fully good or bad, although I think the author is doing a good job discussing the emotions that often occur as a result of gender roles. However, this is a side note to the larger point, although perhaps I'll blog about the book once I've finished it.

I've become quite good at hiding my anger in public. Unfortunately, my fiancee gets the brunt of it, most of the time undeservedly, behind the closed door of our home. This makes sense; I'm a social psychologist, and know the tools of impression management well. But I don't like it.

I'm tired of being angry. It saps my energy, it makes me dislike myself greatly, which leads to low self-esteem and a general feeling of malaise. It also makes me quite irritated at little things that used to roll off my shoulders. Most of all, anger is not the best emotion to be feeling when trying to have right relations with others. Anonymous had it right when s/he said, "Don't hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love."

Obviously, I'm not going into the sources of my anger. There are quite a few, dealing mostly with family, and I don't feel like venting them here. But I can't seem to get the anger to go away, so perhaps publicly discussing it will help spur me to action. Or, perhaps I can just change my occupation and become a Wizard!