Wise Guys

Just to keep everyone clued in, we wrap up our current series Home Improvement this Sunday with the final episode, Don't Get Mad, Get Even.  

Often, when someone offends us or injures us in some way, we take a short-term view in our response to that offense or injury.  "I am angry today".  We don't think about the fact that we may have been angry yesterday, or the week before, or the year before.  We don't concern ourselves with whether we will be angry tomorrow, or next week, or next year.  Our anger exists in the moment.  

But today - in this moment - what if we took a long view of what anger and resentment is and what it does to US? That's right...us.  Not them.  Not the ones who have offended us, who have hurt us, who have injured us, who have damaged us in some way.  Our anger doesn't really hurt them back. Even if it could hurt them.  Would it help us?  A wise old Chinese man once said, "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves".  

From deep wounding hurts, to minor irritations, resentments are like little "Death Legos". Ignoring their impact on us in the immediate, we stack them up each day in a complicated arrangement of interlocking bricks, until one day we have built a wall so large, so wide, so tall that we find ourselves on one side - and love, joy, peace and contentment on the other side.  

Perhaps our anger, resentment, irritation and bitterness would be arrested if we really understood that (in the words of my 80 year-old mother), "People we are angry with fall into one of three categories: 

     1. They don't know we're angry, 

     2. They don't care, or 

     3. They're dead".  

Good news?  We can fix this now.  Old Chinese men and 80 year-old Italian woman aren't the only ones that get to be wise...