In everyday life, I usually have a problem saying “no”; not just to people, but also to ideas and things. I am trying to keep all doors open, and I am keeping stuff just because with some tiny probability it could be useful in the future.
When I get angry, burning bridges or throwing away stuff becomes much easier.
The key is to have the emotion under control (as opposed to being controlled by the emotion). Having emotion under control is not the same as not having the emotion; it means being able to calmly consider things regardless of the emotion, and then letting the emotion burn only in the places you decided to let it.
For example, I can decide which parts of my life need to be changed, and then let my anger attack those parts specifically. (As opposed to letting the anger itself decide which parts of my life it attacks.) As a strawman example, I could decide to only eat broccoli and to avoid chocolate. Then I would wait until something naturally pisses me off (I am good at redirecting the emotion, not at creating it ex nihilo), and then I would irrationally spin the anger against the chocolate: “Fuck this chocolate! It is ruining my whole life! I swear I will never touch this shit again!” Heh.
For me, anger can be a super useful emotion.
In everyday life, I usually have a problem saying “no”; not just to people, but also to ideas and things. I am trying to keep all doors open, and I am keeping stuff just because with some tiny probability it could be useful in the future.
When I get angry, burning bridges or throwing away stuff becomes much easier.
The key is to have the emotion under control (as opposed to being controlled by the emotion). Having emotion under control is not the same as not having the emotion; it means being able to calmly consider things regardless of the emotion, and then letting the emotion burn only in the places you decided to let it.
For example, I can decide which parts of my life need to be changed, and then let my anger attack those parts specifically. (As opposed to letting the anger itself decide which parts of my life it attacks.) As a strawman example, I could decide to only eat broccoli and to avoid chocolate. Then I would wait until something naturally pisses me off (I am good at redirecting the emotion, not at creating it ex nihilo), and then I would irrationally spin the anger against the chocolate: “Fuck this chocolate! It is ruining my whole life! I swear I will never touch this shit again!” Heh.