I was caught in a heavy downpour while riding my motorcycle on my way to the town center. I knew that it was going to rain when I heard the thunder but did not expect it to come down so fast. Although I had worn a wind breaker, the rain blown by the strong wind soaked my back. Reluctantly, I took shelter underneath a flyover and found that my back was all wet and only the front portion of my long sleeve shirt remained dry. I quickly put on a second rain jacket so that I could continue my journey.

During my journey, I became angry with the bad weather. Why did it have to rain so heavily when I was not in my car? I did not feel that it was fair to me and was fed up and ended up so angry. Well, if it wanted to rain, that was it, no one could stop the rain.

I was not convinced, however. I was going against the direction of the rain. I was strong and would not surrender to this terrible weather. Suddenly, I realised I have no power over the weather and somehow this realisation doused the fire burning within me. The downpour had quenched my anger and aroused my rationality. I acknowledged that I was angry. I had considered anger as a friend by accepting it. Anger had helped me to understand more about myself.

There is a wise saying: “Do not make any important decision whenever you are angry because there is a big possibility that the decision would be wrong. We do not fully comprehend the reasons of our anger when we are angry. We feel upset and blame ourselves after the anger has subsided. It is our habit that we allowed ourselves to be led by impulses and become angry instead of understanding the reasons behind it. We should learn from the kids because they know how to be angry without keeping the anger inside them.

In fact, anger is a type of defensive emotion that arises when we feel hurt. We are angry because we need to use anger to protect ourselves from harm. We do not realize that instead of protecting ourselves we are hurting others even more when we expressed our anger. It is a paradox.

The danger of anger is not anger itself but the failure to be aware of the existence of anger. Anger will make us irrational and lose the ability to make good decisions. When confronted with anger, some people choose to run away, while others try to suppress or indulge in the anger. Escapism only provides temporary relief, suppression will only be short term and indulgence will only hurt others and themselves.

One of the most difficult emotions to suppress is anger. The more we strive to control our anger, the more difficult it is to cool down our temper. Even though we manage to suppress our anger, we cannot be assured that there would not be an emotional outbreak in the future. A lot of the tragedies were the result of long term suppression of anger.

Running away from and suppression of anger are not ways to solve the problem, whereas indulgence can only be the last resort when one has no choice. Consequently, how should we handle anger? The best solution is the middle way whereby one accepts anger without suppression, escapism or indulgence. Through acceptance of anger as an emotion without making any value judgment, one will be able to bring anger under control.

When one is mindful and aware of the arising of anger, the intensity of anger will be reduced by half. One needs to keep a grip on one's anger through the understanding and acceptance of our grief, sorrow and other feelings being unsatisfactory characteristic of our mundane world.

Anger is our friend not our enemy. We should not blame ourselves for our anger. Once we are angry we should try to accept it and bring it under control. When we attain that, the anger will just go away.