Yes. The two biggest issues in controling anger are finding healthy ways to express it and letting it go.
If I am angry with my girlfriend, I can simply tell her, tell her why, and then we can resolve it. In this case, being angry is pushing me to address an issue with immediacy, which is healthy.
I could also yell at her or slap her around, neither of which are healthy and one of which will result in assault charges.
I could also just say nothing and let it fester, then when something fairly trivial happens, the anger carried from the previous even all comes pouring out and she gets her head bitten off for no apparent reason. Needless to say, this is unhealthy too.
As for letting it go, the sooner we let our anger go, the healthier it is for us. Unless there is an immediate goal that increased aggression can help achieve, such as protecting my girlfriend from an assailant, then all it does is damage us physically and makes us unpleasant to be around.
People often make strong statements that certain people should never be forgiven by those that they've wronged, but the forgiveness isn't really for the benefit of the person who commited the wrong, but for the benefit the person who was wronged: you being angry and holding a grudge against the perpetrator doesn't bother the perp one bit, but it does do you physiological and emotional harm due to the added stress you place yourself under.
I could nurse a grudge against a public figure for all of the wrongs that he or she commited while in office. But at the end of the day, unless I'm an assassin, that public figure is completely unaffected by my anger and hatred. But I've revved myself up into a frenzy over that person's mishandling of their office.
There are people who's lives became entirely focused on their anger at our former president. One woman who wrote blogs and described her days as a "sustained scream" from the time she woke up until the time she went to bed. What kind of life is that to lead? Not one that I'd want. Sounds like a prescription for a lousy personal life and stress related health problems.
Or Cindy Shehan, who gave control of her life over to President Bush by being so angry that her every move was dictated by whatever polcy he made. She lost her marriage during all that, and in the end, Bush wasn't going to be elected, her own party voted to fund the war, causing her to leave it in 2007, and we're still in Iraq. Where did her anger leave her? Not any place I'd want to be.
Now, forgiving is not forgetting. If you betray a confidence that I place in you, I may forgive you, I may even continue to be a friend to some degree, and I certainly won't hold a grudge, but don't expect me to share anything confidential or deeply personal with you.
Lastly, my examples using some political and newsworthy figures were only for the purpose of discussing how sustained anger against another is simply bad for ourselves. I neither condemn nor support Sheehan, Bush, or the political blogger who's name I don't recall but who's comments I read in the Post about three years or so back.
Bin Ladin? Not worth my energy to hate or be angry with. I have better things to do with my energy than to waste it being angry with him.
Daniel
