A bitter pill to swallow……

A couple of people got me thinking about this quite a bit last night. It has something I have been thinking about for a while but even more so over the past few months. <Thanks in part to a post I read on www.bigmexicandinner.com Thanks @blindsquirrel42> As some may have noticed, I have some anger and bitterness issues. I have issues with anger and bitterness in my life as a whole, with people around me, and with public figures that do things I do not like.

The anger at my life is complicated. I have found that I am angry at most of the choices I have made over the years, choices that I will not go into detail right now. I will say that I have made a lot of mistakes, and they have been, and continue to be costly. I am just now realizing how far reaching the consequences are for some of my poor decisions. This has made me very bitter at a lot that is going on around me right now. However, I have been thinking, would I have the family and friends I have now were it not for these choices?

The anger at people around me, can I justify it? People bother me, it has been so for many a year. I can recall my first major outbursts of anger were directed at my brothers, who, were just being kids and doing what siblings do. I took full advantage of my larger size and hurt them back then, just because I could. Now, I have moved past the violence thanks to my years working at a behavior disorder treatment facility and seeing first hand what violence from anger can do at it’s worst.   <Thanks Karen, I am glad you talked me into it, may you rest in peace. >  But I still find that I get really angry at people and I lash out, without thinking about why I am angry. Can I justify this anger? I harbor bitterness towards some people, and I have to wonder, why do I not think about what is really bothering me? Is it their fault or mine for feeling this way?

Public figures, they are everyone’s targets, especially mine. Why is that exactly? Why do we or I love and hate those in the public view so? For me, it is usually anger, and over something these people did that I do not like. For example, I made a comment Sunday night about Tony Dungy. I made the comment that Tony Dungy sounds like a grandpa, and the fact that someone disagreed with my statement really made me mad, and this time, after thinking about it, I asked myself why. Why do I not like Tony Dungy, did I have a real reason? Now anyone who knows me well knows my great dislike for Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts over all. The story on that is equally silly, but I will save that for another day. The point is, that because Tony Dungy was The Colts coach, I singled him out, I thought: He was “always on the sidelines, whining about calls that went against him and his precious Peyton”. He was a complainer, I said to myself, someone who was constantly trying to manipulate the refs into changing their calls to benefit him.” As I chewed on this for most of last night and part of this morning, I slowly came around to the thought; most of the coaches today do those things. Why does my opinion of Tony Dungy have to be based solely on my jaded opinion of the Colts and my over exaggerated perception of his complaining. As it turns out, it doesn’t and I do not actually know anything about Tony Dungy beyond my experiences watching Colts games in hopes that they would lose. I will not say here that I spent a lot of time researching Tony Dungy, because I haven’t. I only have the information of @rickguilfoil and @schnarr17 who have both said what a great guy Tony Dungy is and that he is a respected Christian and athletic figure. While this does not constitute a fact, it does make the point that I need to think about why I am really angry and that I was wrong about my bitterness and anger at someone defending him. Sorry guys. Clearly, I have a lot of work to do, so this is me, trying to let it go.

Anger is something all of us have to deal with every day. I will not sit here and pretend that from this day forward I will no longer be angry, although one day I hope I can make that claim. I will however say that I am working toward that goal. So as I go through each day, I am trying to take a moment, as I find myself becoming irritated, to think about what I am really angry about, and do I really have a reason to be angry? We will see how that goes. Wish me luck