Rise Above the Issues so that you can see the entire horizon and the issues will seem smaller and easier to resolve.

To succeed it is necessary to accept the world as it is and rise above it. — Michael Korda

How many times has someone or something made you so angry that you feel like you are going to explode? It happens to me on a regular basis, sometimes it makes me so angry that I cannot stop thinking about it. I remember one incident that made me so angry that I fumed about it repeatedly over an entire week-long vacation with my family. Clearly, I let this get the best of me and needed to follow my own advice, “Rise above the issue”. In the end it was easily resolved, but I put way too much energy into being angry about the the issue compared to what it took to resolve it.

That was just one example for me. How about you? How many times has something at work or at home (or a combination) made you so angry you just start thinking of all of the ways to respond or get back at someone and just kept thinking about it over and over again? It happens to all of us and it drains our energy as we pour emotion into the issue.

The good news and bad news is that we respond by getting angry when things don’t go our way because we care about the topic, issue or outcome. If we didn’t care we wouldn’t think twice about it. When our emotions kick in to this level it is usually because it either impacts us directly, or is something we care deeply about, even if we didn’t realize we cared that much. Even if it doesn’t directly impact us even the idea that the outcome didn’t go the way we wanted and may require additional energy to get it back on track may set off this reaction.