Life is a warfare. We all are bound to find it out from personal experience. In waging this daily war, we often lose our temper, peace and harmony both in the family and at work. Anger makes us lose our face, adds a degree of grumpiness to our temperament and leaves our feelings drained.
All of us have heard of Sister Kenny,
the famous Australian nurse who was indeed a godsend to so many – polio
stricken children. As a young girl she often used to leave her mother worried
over her exceptional hot temper. Once when she got incensed over some
triviality, her mother took her aside and gave her some advice in exactly six
words. And those words never left her mind.
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Her whole career was marked by stormy
controversy. But in all her battles with doubters, who ridiculed her methods
and questioned her integrity, Sister Kenny remembered her mother’s wise
counsel: Anyone who angers you, conquers you.
Mahatma Gandhi had these words on the
wall of his room in Sevagram: When you are in the right you can afford to keep
your temper, and when you are in the wrong you cannot afford to lose it.
“Even when we believe we have a right
to get mad”, writes Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, “We know inside we are a lesser
person every time we lose our temper”.
And here are some practical hints on
how not to get at somebody:
1. Remember that anger is a hot emotion. Cool it before it breaks loose. As the emotion rises, send cooling thoughts through your mind. Focus on cool places you like to visit.
2. Uncontrolled anger requires a loud or intense voice. Keep your volume low, Nobody can get very mad in a whisper.
3. Don’t let your body assume a fighting stance. Keep your hands from clutching. Anger is hard to express if you slump in a chair, harder yet if you lie down.
4. If you feel rage coming on and think that counting to ten is silly, just repeat the words: With God’s help, I’ll skip it.
Anger is usually the accumulated
vehemence resulting from a lot of minor irritations. To get at the root of
anger, make a list of all the little things that irritate you, no matter how
inconsequential or silly they may seem. Through applied faith and prayer, gain
a victory over each of these irritations.
If you would not like to find
yourself on a psychiatrist’s couch, consider this Prayer for a person in a
Hurry, which is said to be very
popular among Glasgow businessmen:
‘Slow me down, Lord!
‘Ease the pounding of my heart by the
quieting of my mind. Steady my hurried pace with a vision of eternal reach of
time.
‘Give me, amidst the confusion of my
day, the calmness of the Everlasting Hills. Break the tensions of my nerves and
muscles with the soothing music of the singing streams that live in my memory.
Help me to know the magical, restoring power of sleep.
‘Teach me the art of taking one
minute vacations, or slowing down or look at a flower: to chat with a friend;
to pat a dog; to read a few lines from a good book. Remind me, each day, of the
fable of the hare and the tortoise; that I may learn that the race is not
always to the swift; that there is more to life then increasing its speed.
‘Let me look upward to the branches
of the towering oak and recall that it grew great and strong by growing slowly
and well.
‘Slow me down, Lord! Inspire me to
stand my roots deep into the soil of life’s enduring values that I ,too , may
grow towards the stars of my greater destiny’.
