A constant challenge life presents is to act upon what our heart tells us we should be doing rather than acting out of pain or anger. Usually, these are two different things and doing the former is constructive and improves our lives, but doing the latter is destructive and usually hurts us more than the person we are angry at.

Right now, I find myself in a unique situation where both what I know I need, to build my network of friends locally, people I can talk to face to face, do things with, is the same thing I feel motivated to do out of anger as kind of a “screw you, I don’t need you anyway, I can find other people that WANT to be a part of my life” message.

Even though the gross objective in either case is the same, make new friends, become more socially involves with real people locally, the subtleties very likely will be affected by my motivation, and I’m having a hard time being heart motivated right now, and I fear with disastrous consequences if I can’t get that under control.

This is an aspect of forgiveness that I think a lot of people miss, it’s not so much for the benefit of the person that harmed us as for our own good. Anger and hatred are often more destructive to the angry hater than the target of their anger. I know this intellectually, yet I’m having a hard time internalizing it and acting accordingly.

Making friends for the sake of making life fuller and more satisfying is a positive thing and if done with that motivation I believe it will improve my quality of life, mood, overall functioning. On the other hand, if done as some sort of revenge, then it’s going to worsen relationships with people that I care about, even when I am angry at them.

So how to get the motivation right and do the right thing? That’s a tough one, a work in progress.