Its all the Rage..the decline of self discipline.

It appears to be all the rage these days. Rage, that is. It comes in
countless varieties -- road rage, grocery store rage, airline rage,
youth sports rage, restaurant rage, standing-in-line rage,
can't-get-in-line rage, ad nauseum. There is no end to short tempers
and bad manners on public display these days. Rage is becoming the norm!

Just examine say the sports pages of your newspaper even the free ones. Poor sportsmanship and anger literally "beat out" scores and game highlights.The fiercest action is in the stands.

A mother slaps the mother of a girl on the winning basketball team at the end of the game. A high school baseball coach breaks an umpire's jaw after a disputed call.

A father beats another father to death in an argument over rough play at their sons' hockey practice.

All sorts of explanations are offered for this epidemic of anger.
Social scientists blame stress, high expectations, and multi-tasking.

Perhaps this isn't merely a psychological problem. It's a moral issue that
reflects a lack of the virtue once called self-control. It is in my view a lack of
respect for other people and reflects the childish sentiment some never
outgrow that everything must happen my way.

If you're holding a brick, don't let fly. Let go.

The late Henri Nouwen told the story of John and Sandy. "We've never
had an argument," said John. "Let's have a squabble like other people
have." "But how do we start an argument?" asked Sandy. "It's very
simple," replied John. "I take a brick and say, 'It's mine,' and then
you say, 'No, it's mine.' And then we have an argument." So they sat
down to find out what quarreling was like, and John took a brick and
said, "This brick is mine."

Sandy looked over at him gently and said, "Well, if it is yours, you
take it."

Where did I get the idea that I am entitled to everything I want
whenever I want it? Has our materialistic and narcissistic age so
infected us all that no one can do without, wait her turn, or lose an
athletic contest? Do others have rights?

'Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right
in the sight of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends
on you, live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:17-18 TNIV)'.

If you're holding a brick of anger or resentment today, don't let fly.
Let go.

let me finish with this..


I am guided by a friend to this speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen at the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded an Honorary PhD. "I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk or your life on a bus or in a car or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.

People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a winter's night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've received your test results and they're not so good.

Here is my resume: I am a good parent to three children. I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my spouse. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and them to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocre, at my job if those other things were not true.

You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.

It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the colour of our kids' eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of to live.

I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the back yard with the sun on your face.

Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived".