5. It's OK to be Mad
Now that we're about halfway through the book, let's take a moment to discuss how it's alright to be mad. The issue is that we stay mad for far too long. As mentioned earlier in the book, when we quantify how much time we've wasted during our life being mad, it can be quite shocking. The thing is that anger is a perfectly normal human emotion. Our expectation should never be to not get mad again ever because that goes back to foundation #2 of setting up false expectations, but that's for ourselves.
The issue for us is that we don't have a problem with anger, we have a problem with how we react to anger. There's a big difference between reacting and responding. When we react to anger, we might verbally, emotionally or physically hurt others or ourselves, and that is not alright. Neither they, nor use deserves that. When we learn how to respond to our anger, we have a more level head and can make decisions.
Responding to anger puts us back in control. So many of us think we're in control, but our anger and other emotions drive us to do things that we regret. The goal of this book is to empower you to take control of your life by acknowledging that anger is going to happen, but now you have the power of choice as to how you respond to that anger. By working on the foundations of knowing that it's easier to fix you than others, that your unrealistic expectations of yourself and others are affecting your anger and that your anger is rooted in fear, you'll be able to pause and respond to anger rather than react.
