Anger and dealing with it

Edit: This post moved to http://www.theonlinerant.com/2007/09/23/anger-and-dealing-with-it/

I don't get angry very easily. In fact I rarely let anything make me angry. But the other day I was a little upset. I wouldn't say I was really angry, more I was annoyed and frustrated.

I don't even remember what I was upset about. Which probably means it wasn't a big deal. If it had been, I'm sure I would have remembered what it was. But I do remember the results of my anger. I let that anger affect my whole day. And affect everything around me.

All day I let every little annoyance make me angry. I snapped at people. I was gruff and abrupt to everyone I talked to. All of which just caused everything to get worse. People responded to my bad attitude, and returned it back to me.
Then I felt justified in my bad behavior and my anger. After all, so an so said this bad thing to me. So I have a right to be angry with him. I completely ignored the fact that I had started the problems by my initial bad attitude.

The entire day was ruined. And it was all my own fault. I got angry about something, and took my anger out on everything and everyone around me.

I may or may not have been justified in my initial anger, but I didn't handle it correctly. Instead of dealing with the original problem, I let my anger spill over into other areas. That was wrong. I should have isolated the anger to the thing that caused it. I then should have dealt with that anger and discarded it. Then it wouldn't have affected other areas and people. And I wouldn't have ruined my whole day over something that was so insignificant I don't even remember it.

I'm reminded of Ephesians 4:26 "Be angry and do not sin." That was what I should have remembered when I started my day.