Anger

     It hits like a poison arrow causing me to drop what I’m doing and focus on the pain it inflicts.

Where does it come from? Is it shot from a bow of some unseen foe hoping to do me harm? Or does it arise from within when certain buttons are pushed, like a crazy bone reacting once a physician’s tool strikes that right (or wrong) spot?

My anger springs up almost immediately, spreading pellets out from a shotgun blast over a wide area, striking everything in its path, including the object of my ire as well as ones I never intended to harm.

The anger doesn’t dissipate once it explodes.

It Lingers

It simmers at a low boil, awaiting the opportunity to burn and scold anything or anyone my impatience forces me to look unkindly on and consider spraying upon. It pains and marks me as I hold it obscenely close trying to figure out where it came from, who or what caused it, and why I so easily fall prey to it whenever it erupts inside.

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     You’re a fool,

       Michael J.

       Let It Go!

Remove the arrow before the poison spreads and engulfs whatever goodness remains in you. It can destroy whatever love and compassion you tried to generate in life when cool-headed and away from less stressful situations.

Don’t try to analyze, categorize or editorialize the grave danger it poses. Don’t believe you can control it. You cannot “befriend” it.

You Can’t Tame it.

It’s too strong and it will demand control of and over you every time.

Sure, you may have needed to use it to right a wrong, to defend with all of your might against some evil, to even kill so that an innocent could justifiably go on living.

But you must give it up! Use it sparingly, if at all, and release it as you learn the long, slow practice of patience.

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     This could be first step in understanding that this poison will always be there, that there is a cause for its painful existence; and that help is available to forestall its deadly mission once you learn to walk a path you always knew you’d need to follow to truly awake.

    PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) can be treated and understood without having to face the slings and arrows of war day in and day out.

(Let me deal with the type of arrow that brought down a brave warrior like the Greek Achilles!