Anger is like an octopus. It reaches out its arms or tentacles in many directions. It has a habit of hurting not only the person against whom the anger is aimed, but also a lot of innocent bystanders. The story of the burnt toast explains this:

In her early morning rush to get to work on time, a woman carelessly left the bread in the toaster too long. When she smelled it burning, it was too late; the toast was a goner. Since those two pieces of bread were the last left in the house, she put the burnt slices of carbon out on the table next to her husband’s coffee. The sight of the burnt bread ANGERED him so,  that after yelling a few mean words about her cooking skill, he rushed out of the house to his car. Without looking where he was going, he gunned it out of the driveway, almost crashing into another car coming down the street. The man in that car gave him the finger and shouted some choice words, comparing him to a body part below the waist. In this way, the husband’s ANGER against his wife was passed onto the driver with whom he nearly collided. Arriving at his job that driver passed on the anger of the ‘burnt toast’ to his co-worker. He shouted at her because she had taken the last package of ‘sweet and low,’ and not replaced it from the cabinet down the hall in which coffee supplies are kept.

Later, during her lunch break, the co-worker passed the anger, still fuming inside of her, onto the man behind the counter of the pizza shop because he didn’t take her order soon enough. And on and on went the anger set on fire by the ‘burnt toast.’

Anger is a normal human emotion. BUT people who are not able to control their anger are in danger of being controlled by it. They develop very thin skins. This causes them to feel that any word or action aimed in their direction is meant to ‘dis’ them. Very often the ‘dissin’ angry people see and hear is not real; it’s imagined…

GETTING unnecessarily angry with a friend, parent, teacher, or anyone else puts you BELOW them in maturity and good judgment.

REVENGING the anger you have against another person gets you even.

BUT…FORGIVING AND FORGETTING people who rattle your cage puts you above them.  That’s why it usually makes sense to STAY COOL when something that someone says or does gets you heated.