I’m Not Alone When I Demand We Stop The Anger

It started when I was so little I can’t even remember the conversations. Anger ruled our household.

I remember the back door slamming.

Also, I remember the sounds of my father’s heavy boots as he stormed into the kitchen.

How could I forget the swear words that I was never supposed to utter?

What I remember most, is trying to curl into myself. It’s not easy to disappear into your own skin to escape the constant barrage of vengeful words and discontent that filled our kitchen.

My biggest goal was to become too small to notice. I knew that one wrong word or movement would redirect that anger toward me, and the knowledge terrified me.

Why Is It So Easy For Us To Share Anger?

Once grown, I was desperate to escape the anger. I married the boy who was the class clown. It’s hard to explain, but I loved how he made me laugh.

What I hadn’t figured into my grand plan for my future was that my future father-in-law would die of a heart attack right before our wedding. The boy I fell in love with changed overnight.

Each of us deals with loss differently. Anger is certainly one of the stages of the healing process, but we need to get beyond it. Nothing I said or did through the years made any difference. I finally found the courage to walk away from the boy I fell in love with because I couldn’t live surrounded by anger any longer.

His anger wasn’t physical. It was just…well, anger. He was angry every day about something that happened at work or in the neighborhood. What confused me most, was that outwardly to everyone else, he was still the life of the party.

No man in our neighborhood spent as much time with their kids. He was a wonderful father.

My husband was religious, but it didn’t do anything to curb his anger.

What’s Wrong With Us?

I can’t turn on the television to check on the news without seeing angry people shouting over each other’s voices.

Kids die every day in their schools and on the streets.

Why have we become a society that verbalizes anger at every turn, but is unwilling to work together to find a compromise?

When I was working, I was introduced to the Pareto Principle during a sales training. This 80/20 rule seems to apply to nearly any situation.

If I understand it correctly, we agree on 80% of the things that affect us most in life.

We agree:

• Our children deserve to feel safe
• Our family comes first…always
• We should receive equal pay for equal work
• No one has the right to enter our home without permission
• We will fight if necessary to protect our homes, land, and country
• Make medicine accessible without extraordinary expense
• Kids have a right to an education
• No one should have to go to bed hungry if they are willing and able to work
• Our religion is our right
• Protect our natural resources
• The safety of the air we breathe and the water we drink is our right as a citizen

I could go on and on, but you get the idea

The mistrust in this country is profound. Neighbors are fighting with neighbors. Parents are reeling from loss and yet we have not agreed to agree on much of anything.

We Can Do So Much Better

We are the adults in the room.

I can’t tolerate the anger I hear everywhere I go any longer.

It’s time we come to some type of agreement on what is fair and what direction we need to go in order to make sure our future is not compromised.

I’m seventy, but I still have some really good years left.

There’s no way I’ll sit back and allow myself to have to accept the divisional rhetoric any longer.

I can turn off the television.

Heavens, a good book can entertain me for hours. I will no longer stay in a room where people are arguing.

Life is way too short.

Now, I want happiness. I crave laughter. It’s time to stop crying and fighting. We need to work together by starting with the 80% where we can actually agree and not bite each other’s heads off.

Are you as tired of all the anger as I am?

Be Safe. Be Loved. Pass It On!