Why I'm Angry All the Time

Two years ago I decided to give up being merely comfortable and to ruthlessly pursue happiness, which I've pretty much achieved. I'm with a man I love doing what I love in a place that makes me swoon every time I look out the window.

Yet I spend a good deal of my time unreasonably angry with the world in general.

My pursuit of happiness is not comfortable, safe or easy. It's scary. Turning my back on comfort and relentlessly chasing happiness means taking risks which involves a whole lot of fear. Evolution wired human beings to be afraid of the unknown – which has saved us a species many times – but fear often produces anger and because I'm an overly-polite British-Canadian, I absorb that anger. I intellectualize my responses and feel like vomiting if I irrationally snark at someone, but then I feel like vomiting because all that anger has to go somewhere or it will give me an ulcer.

So what to do? Time and time again I've discovered the answer and yet time and time again I ignore it completely. I need to walk more. When I go for an epic two hour walk the endorphins soar and the anger that chews away at my stomach lining shrinks.

In fact I'm going out for a walk right now. See ya!

Someday Lessons:

• A rigorous pursuit of happiness involves more risk than many people are willing to take.
• Never underestimate the power and positive value of endorphins.

Comments

[Jess]

I'd just like to say that I admire the way that you are so dedicated to the pursuit of happiness.
I once heard someone talking about how happiness, like success, is something which you can't really aim for and achieve: that if your goal is happiness, striving for that isn't going to bring you happiness. Instead it sort of comes as a by-product of living the kind of life that fulfils you: one day you'll realise, if you take the time to reflect, that you actually are happy! Did that make sense? probably not. :)
I don't know ... but maybe you'll feel better if you concentrate on the journey, not the destination...?

[Alex Fayle]

Thanks Jess!

I agree with you. One can't actually pursue happiness or success. For example with success it needs to be success in something, so the success is the byproduct of doing something well.

Likewise happiness is a byproduct of living my life as I dream it to be.

Look forward to seeing more comments from you!
Alex

[Erin]

The other thing besides exercise that I find helps me with stress is plotting something--putting someone into a mystery story as a victim, or maybe blowing up an entire planet. I've got one SF novel in the brewing stage that involves the complete destruction of at least two civilizations. Great way to displace anger.

[Alex Fayle]

Before I went out for a walk I used the anger to have a character attacked by the Big Bad for the first time. I felt much better after that.