My Mom tells me all the time “The minute you set your mind to something all the negatives hit you in the face.” Ok Mom as much as I hate to admit it… you’re right. Here I am on my quest for peace and who should show up banging on my door but Anger himself. I swing open the door to confront that gnarly beast and say “What are you doing here? Can’t you see I’m on the beach, my toes in the sand, the sun on my back and the kids just started laughing over their lopsided sandcastle?” He pushes past me into the living room and sits his revolting, filthy, putrid self on my beige sofa and announces “Your going to deal with me one way or another!” Good ole’ Anger, I have fed him so long he resembles some kind of overindulged, overweight giant mealworm. I decide he needs one more meal before his long overdue diet so I lean back in my chair and inhale a nose full of his stench, then sit up and slowly exhale and say “Here you go fatty, snack on this! I am angry because I believe Yamaha killed my son. I believe they miss designed the Rhino and knew it before they even ever sold one! This injustice has cost me way more than I was willing to pay and I don’t think they care! They even painted the Rhino’s the appropriate colors, Red for the innocent blood they spilled all across this country, Green for the money they made off of these murders without conscious, and Camouflage to conceal the mistakes they knowingly made. I believe some of the salesmen misrepresent the Rhino as safe, helping people to purchase their very own murder weapon! I believe there should be a real recall not just some offer of doors, I believe all of the problems with the Rhino like the too narrow track width and the lack of foot and arm protection, the inadequate roll bar and seatbelts should be corrected before one more unit is sold and I believe that Yamaha should do this, not because they HAVE to but because they have one tiny ounce of human compassion for there fellow man, BUT THEY DON’T!” I stop talking to catch my breath from my rant and smile to see J.T. out of the corner of my eye doing a victory dance because I just told Anger where to stick it, and then it hit me… The anger I just vented is justified, being mad and wanting to force change in Yamaha is alright it is my habit of turning other emotions into anger that is toxic. I have developed the ability to turn sadness into anger because heartache can’t be thrown at someone, it just sits inside me weeping. I can even skillfully turn my guilt over happy feelings into anger because then it is vented and not eating me alive from the inside out. These reasons for being angry are not justified and the true emotions that lay beneath should be acceptable to feel and ultimately need to be felt, not fed to anger, so I can truly move forward in this journey.




Anybody can become angry--that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way--that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
- Aristotle