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book review

From Heather's Book List The Bastard on the Couch : 27 Men Try Really Hard to Explain Their Feelings About Love, Loss, Fatherhood, and Freedom (by Jones, Daniel and a cast of men)
"I rapidly adapted to the cat's temperament by treating her just the way I treat my wife: letting her go off on her own, and not forcing my attentions on her, waiting for her to come to me. It's a working strategy for cat and woman alike, though in my wife's case I get a little lonely from the waiting."
- Sean Elder, The Lock Box

Anger, justified or not- if acted mostly as a release without the clear-cut agenda of provoking change- is selfish and juvenile, obnoxious and unattractive, and it got you nowhere. No matter how determinedly this guy sought the empathy of others for the bullshit he was enduring, he wasn't going to get it- at least not this way… which is not to say I never lose my temper. But it becomes clearer to me every day that our reactions to circumstances are exactly what we permit or deny ourselves. It's dangerous to embrace the notion that anger is something we've earned a right to express and that it takes expressions of anger to earn respect. Lashing out angrily is less an expression of emotion than enslavement by emotion. And to believe otherwise is damaging to ourselves and especially damaging to those we love.
- Eric Bartels, My Problem with Her Anger

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