Angry? Put your “Awareness” to work

Anger is an expression of energy being wasted in you. When you are angry at someone or something, some part of you, within you, burns first before that energy is expressed on a target. You can’t avoid anger altogether – but the key is to be aware whenever you get angry!  

Understanding, and being aware of, anger is important to live intelligently. Anger and desire have a connection. You want something or you want someone to do something or even when you “want” someone to love you or respect you, and you don’t succeed, you immediately get angry. Your deep, intense feeling of depravation is expressed as energy that gets beamed on whatever or whoever came between you and what you desired. That’s why you intensely dislike whatever or whoever came in the way. This intensity is nothing but anger. It starts first by burning within you and then soon gets expressed on whoever or whatever came in your way. This happens only when you want something or someone very badly. When you are awfully serious about Life. But what if you were less serious, in fact a little playful, like in a game? What if you told yourself that you will try your best and that sometimes in Life, you win some, you lose some, what if you were accepting of the vagaries of Life? Will you feel so much intensity within yourself? Will you be so rabid about not getting what you wanted? Of course not. This is the balance, this is the tolerance that comes from understanding Life, from being accepting, by being playful. This is what being aware really means. Awareness cannot stop you from getting angry. But it serves as an early warning or an alarm system that goes off as soon as anger rises in you.

A question that may come up is how can you achieve anything in Life without being serious about it? Indeed, focus and being serious are critical to any ambition being fulfilled, to any dream coming true. So the suggestion here is not to dissuade you from being either focused or serious. What I am saying is that you can’t always get what you want in Life. When you don’t get it, when you fail in your efforts, don’t let your failure consume you. Don’t be so serious with yourself and Life that your frustration and anger destroys you. Temper your ambitions with a deep understanding of Life. When you don’t get what you want, you would normally expend energy by being angry with yourself or with whoever prevented you from getting what you wanted or with Life. If you invest that energy instead on learning from your failure, you will get better at whatever you are trying to do. That’s what awareness can help you do – become a better player. When you play better the next time, the chances of your winning, of getting what you want are that much higher!

Remember: you can neither repress desire. Nor can you control anger. You can only learn to be aware of both. When you live with awareness though, a certain peaceful quality, a tolerance arises in you. Your awareness alone is capable of drowning every wave of anger that rises in you every time your wants are not met. Interestingly, it is this same awareness that can guide you to getting whatever you want from Life!