by William Taboas, M.A.

I missed my bus to work yesterday. I must have looked pretty upset, because an older gentleman decided to impart words of wisdom onto me. I’m sure if I didn’t have to wait for the next bus I would have dismissed the man due to the emotional state I was in at that moment. But for some reason, I decided to hear him out.

The man said that he used to get angry at things he couldn’t control, such as traffic, people, weather, etc.  His quick temper would boil throughout the day, spilling over to other areas in his life. He mentioned that he suffered from heart disease, and following a visit to the doctor, he learned about how his anger exacerbated his health problems. “I was literally killing myself with my anger” he said, “and life is not worth living if I’m always angry”. “I want to be there for my wife, my children, and my grandchildren” he continued. “If I were to waste time being angry at everything in this world, I would have missed out on spending time with the people I love”.

I asked him, out of curiosity, how did he not allow himself to remain angry. “I focus on what I need to do instead of distracting myself with what other people or the world should do” he said. “I cannot control other people, the buses, the trains, or the weather!”, “You get nothing done staying angry”. Maybe his words came across as preachy, but he had a point. His wisdom resonated with everything I knew about REBT. Demanding doesn’t exert control over your environment; it merely gets you worked up. By the time our conversation ended, the next bus arrived, proving that anger wasn’t necessary to make buses appear out of thin air.

A wise man once told me: “You always have a choice to remain angry. Choose wisely.”

William Taboas, M.A.