There are some cases when anger can be a productive emotion. In the face of injustice or something that just shouldn’t be, it’s right to feel a sense of anger. That being said, most of us probably struggle with channeling our anger. Traffic for me is one of those instances. My blood starts to boil when other people aren’t driving the way that I think they should. There are times that I get angry at my computer as though it were intentionally trying to sabotage my attempts at productivity on any given day. A slow wifi connection….a household appliance that isn’t working….the new operating system on the iPhone. I don’t consider myself the most patient person on the planet so there are plenty of times on an average day that my anger isn’t channeled wisely. Edwards’ 15th resolution was…

Resolved, Never to suffer the least motions of anger towards irrational beings.

So objects, animals….anything that’s not a person. I hear Edwards saying here that he doesn’t want to waste his time. I read in a book the other day that emotions are like waves. You can’t stop them from coming but you can choose which ones you’re going to surf. Edwards’ was the kind of guy that understood he only had a limited amount of time on this side of heaven. He didn’t want to waste it getting angry at things or about things that weren’t going to change at the end of the day. I can get angry at my car or computer all day long but they’re not going to reason with me. They’re irrational beings so my anger would be better spent elsewhere.

Edwards’ does not say here that he’s never going to get angry. He’s just going to make sure that his anger makes sense. Typically irrational anger has to do with not identifying the root cause. In other words, I could get angry at my car for not working but I may need to look deeper and realize the reason it’s not working is because I haven’t taken it to the mechanic. I can get angry at my computer or I can put in an IT request to fix the problem. In this world we can choose to be critics that sit on the sidelines and get angry at things that we can’t change. I think our time would be better spent however, if we rolled up our sleeves and chose to be part of the solution.