Monsters
By Betty Bassett
There's a monster that lives inside of us. Mine is anger. When I let the monster out, it can be destructive. When the destruction is complete then I just have to live with the broken pieces of its aftermath. My monster has a name. It is called Justification and justification gives me permission to unleash myself and my ability to create chaos into the lives of other people.
When people have had a bad life where others have harmed them so greatly then their monster is huge. If people have had a milder and gentler life then they don't even begin to grasp or understand people's internal struggle with monsters. They only understand that they need to stay away from people like that for our own self preservation.
Jordan Peterson said that there are monsters within each of us; whether it be a cute and adorable and tame little monster, or a big and terrifying one. I never knew before today that the monster was anger. Morning comes and I am living in the shattered pieces of the destruction that my monster caused.
The broken pieces objectively are pieces of information that I can dissect and analyze so I can mold myself into a better person or maybe just a less harmful one.
Time only moves forward.
My monster destroyed the nurturance that I strive to give to others.
Anger causes failure and because I succumbed to my monster I failed.
In this circumstance I could have made a different choice and gone down a different path. The result would have produced a different outcome.
I consider the world that I am striving to mold with my choices. Are my choices bringing me closer to achieving my objective or further away.
When my lease is terminated then what is left behind are deeds and misdeeds. Any financial or material gain becomes worthless in the end.
The question is how do I fulfill the mission to which I was assigned? How do I accomplish that? That is the question. That is always the question. That is the only question.
From Jacqueline
ReplyDeleteI think there is a huge chunk of logic missing in the beginning. It seems you’re making the all encompassing statement that people who have had unfortunate lives all have deep anger issues and can’t help but cause pain and people with charmed lives are not capable of anger or misdeeds just because their life has been so good... It’s almost akin to saying poor people are bad and miserable and rich people are sweet innocent angels. I think it would help to maybe think on it and flesh out this idea a bit more. I think it would be a bit more realistic and you could uncover more depth. I could have misread your piece but that's what I got from it. Just my opinion.
The question in the end is a good question but again the world is not so black and white. I have seen immense good from both people who have lived charmed lives and people who have suffered a lot. The difference is that the ones who have suffered have overcome their obstacles and don’t want to harm others because they actually know what it feels like.
From Chris
ReplyDeleteThe psychology is pretty good. The pop psychology notion that you should express anger is very flawed, as some people have so much of it that they are walking time bombs. Even with more moderate mentalities it is usually better to take time out to reflect on anger before acting on it. Eg I have written angry letters, held them back for a few days reflection and then usually either torn them up or made them far more conciliatory.
By Jim
ReplyDeleteI don't think withholding anger is a good idea. Becoming angry when appropriate is a sane response. Anger can motivate and even inspire positive action. In my opinion, the real monster is hate. Hate is unreasoning, and it eats away at the soul of the hater. I'm talking about real hate... the frothing at the mouth kind, not the "haters will hate" silliness we see on-line. As for your question: In the end, a successful life is about how you loved and helped your fellows, even when they gave you good reasons not to. It's about how much you gave, not how much you got. I wish I had learned that earlier in my life.
From Carlos...
ReplyDeletePersonally I've found that the Anger monster is actually trying to protect you by keeping others away, so it's not technically a bad thing. And moreover, Anger doesn't really want to keep you away from others, so it is always looking for a reason NOT to attack; it always wants you to give it a reason to go back into its cave. That monster you call Justification is just you not having an answer for Anger. Locking it away and isolating Anger, while it might seem helpful at first, is very destructive, since you are never giving Anger the answer it is looking for, so it will eventually break out, as pissed as it was before--but now probably aimed at the wrong target. Learn what it is that gets Anger riled up, understand why Anger wants to protect you, and you can get Anger to go back into its cave on its own. And once you learn to look for the answers for Anger you will learn to see why others' Anger monsters are raging, and that, too will calm your own Anger Monster...