Many things in life can get make us angry, whether it is our boss, coworker, spouse, children, or even our neighbor.
Simply watching the news or scrolling through our social media feed can fuel our anger.
Depending on how we deal with our anger, it can last only a moment, or it can fester within us throughout the whole day.
However we deal with our anger in the moment, we need to make sure to not end the day in an angry state.
Do not let the sun go down on your wrath
St. Francis de Sales strongly advises his readers in his Introduction to the Devout Life to not go to sleep while angry:
[I]f anger tarries till night, and the sun goes down upon our wrath (a thing expressly forbidden by the Apostle), there is no longer any way of getting rid of it; it feeds upon endless false fancies; for no angry man ever yet but thought his anger just.
He is referring to the following passage from St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians:
Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun set on your anger.
The longer we remain angry, the longer we will replay what caused us to be angry. This only adds more fuel to the flames and we will increasingly try to justify our anger.
St. Francis de Sales suggests never letting anger have any room within our heart:
The same Saint Augustine, writing to Profuturus, says that it is better to refuse entrance to any even the least semblance of anger, however just; and that because once entered in, it is hard to be got rid of, and what was but a little mote soon waxes into a great beam.
Above all, try to forgive whomever it is was that angered you, or simply let go any event or political post that you saw on social media.
God has given us many gifts in life and it is better to use our time giving thanks to God, than to dwell upon our anger.
