Focus on happiness

Someone left a comment the other day in which they talked about anger, and the struggle to live with the anger over what had happened to them. My response was something along the lines that, for me, the anger will never completely go away, but it gets replaced. As I learn to live my own life and find my own contentment, I find that the anger, though still present, ceases to hold such a prominent place in my life. I was reminded of that comment when I saw this post by Mike Sanders, in which he discusses focusing on happiness, and how we get the most happiness from our relationships with other people, because they are difficult and challenging.

It’s the challenge of relating with others that make us better people, and the rewards from overcoming those challenges that bring us the most happiness. Anger, on the other hand, is an internal emotion. It drives people away from us, and ourselves away from others. It creates alienation between people, when it is a consuming force within. It’s difficult to relate and have personal relationships when you have so much anger. That’s why it’s important to get out there, do the things that make you a better person, seek the kind of relationships, and interactions that bring you happiness, and use that to push aside the controlling factor that anger has become.

Too many of us simply wait for the anger to “go away” before building the relationships that bring us happiness, spending all of our energy and focus on “getting rid of our anger”. While all of that can be helpful in learning to express emotions that have been bottled up for decades, you will never get rid of your anger, only learn to deal with it in healthier ways, hopefully.

On the other hand, if you can find joy, happiness, and enjoyment from activities, and people in your life, and fill yourself with those emotions, anger cannot exert the same hold that it does today. So get out and do the things you love. That’s the healthiest thing you can do for yourself.