I used to have a bad temper. I’d get angry about a whole lot of things, including inanimate objects that didn’t bend to my immediate will. The ‘red mist’ would come down and I’d be carried along by a tsunami of emotion over which I had absolutely no control.
But why do we get angry? As I explain in Time-Light, anger has several roots, all related to time.
One cause is the recognition of an anticipated pattern. In other words, there is an immediate comparison to a past event that didn’t go the way we wanted, and we fully expect a similar outcome again.
Another can be the extension of time into an imagined future. Something in the present moment frustrates the progress towards something that is about to happen, such as making an appointment or catching a train.
There’s nothing wrong in wanting to be punctual – but either we can make the appointment on time, or we can’t.
While we remain in thrall to the past, we cannot be present. Instead, we see life through the tinted spectacles of our past, and anticipate more of the same – instead of opening up to the infinite possibility of the present, where anything can happen.
Were we fully open to infinite possibility, we wouldn’t be so quick to anger because there would be no anticipation, and no extension in time from a poorly-remembered past to an imagined future.
Only when we fully understand the movement of the past – and the creation of ‘you’ in that process – can we open up to the enormous power of now and its transformative energy.