How to prevent getting mad

How often do you get mad or upset because your sense of order has been violated?

Maybe you come home and the kitchen is a mess. No one thought to clean it up because they expected you to do it. Without missing a beat, anger starts to well up within.

Maybe you told your son to take out the garbage and he didn’t…and for the tenth time. You get upset.

Maybe you voted for a politician you expected to fulfill your wishes, and he didn’t. You get disillusioned…and upset.

Maybe a rude driver cuts in front of you without warning. An unpleasant word or two is unleashed.

And the list could go on and on…

Does any of this sound familiar?

There’s a way to prevent this kind of anger from germinating and erupting. It’s to realize that it’s much more important to keep thought in love than to get our way, even when we are convicted it’s the right way. We have to let the offense go and rise in love.

In the long run, it’s not a clean kitchen, garbage placed timely on the curb, political decisions, and keeping the right-of-way on the highway that secures harmony in life. It’s the love we live, reflect and express.

It requires a spiritualizing of motives to obtain this freedom and peace. It requires a spiritual sense of order to replace a lesser material sense of order.

Jesus had this higher sense of order. It was unjust and cruel for him to be condemned and crucified. But he did not return anger and hate. He returned love. He knew that love is what would keep him alive, and for all of eternity. He let the human injustice go and found refuge and peace of mind in sticking to his theme for life—live Love.

We can do the same.

“It is error even to murmur or to be angry over sin.” Mary Baker Eddy