I talk about emotions frequently. They are a part of life, and you feel all of your emotions. But one I don’t talk about too much is anger.

Anger by itself is neither good nor bad. Sometimes you need to feel anger. The reaction to it can be either good or bad.

I had something happen this weekend. Something of mine got damaged. While the damage is fixable, the fact that it happened is what angers me the most. It’s something I care for, and something that means a lot to me.

I’ve been holding onto this anger for a couple days now (which if you know me, you know what a feat that is). And I’ve come to realize a few things in that time.

First of all, my anger is completely justified. My property was damaged, and it both means a lot and is expensive. I’m perfectly allowed to be angry at this whole situation and at the person responsible. I’m not entirely sure who did it so I don’t have someone to put the blame on, but I have a good guess.

Second thing I realized is that accusing someone isn’t going to help the situation. Whether or not this was an accident is mostly irrelevant. Without explicit proof, accusations aren’t going to help this situation get resolved.

The third thing that I realized with this whole situation is while my anger is justified, that doesn’t mean that a response is. Especially not the response I initially wanted to give. Truthfully, I wanted to punch someone in the face. But starting a fight isn’t going to get me anywhere.

Fourth, I had to be able to process and let my anger out in a constructive– rather than destructive– way. I’m still upset that this happened, but that initial anger has lessened. I won’t say it’s gone, but it’s not as prevalent or powerful as it was before.

Finally, the last thing that I gotta remind myself is that I gotta move on and continue. Again, the damage is fixable. I can’t let it stop me from living my life.

Anger is an emotion. You feel it pretty naturally. While you can’t control the emotions you feel, you can control how you respond to them. I can be angry all I want about this. But I gotta be the one to take a deep breath, and stop this from escalating. If I were to be petty and try to get them back, it’s just going to keep snowballing. But if I don’t react in that way, then I don’t have to worry about that. While the anger is fine, revenge won’t help. I’m not sure if I’ll forgive this, at least not for a while, but I’m also not going to let it interrupt or impact my life anymore than it already has.

So in conclusion, feel your anger. Cope with it in a healthy way. And then don’t let it continue to hurt you or anyone else.