Anger.

It's a feeling that we're all so used to — that burning feeling inside of us all that blossoms in the chest and spreads outward like a spark on the forest floor until the trees are a lake of fire itself, burning in all its misery and fury until there's nothing left but ashes. Smoke curls from above, letting out its wispy fingers to grab at what clear humanity is left in the air, but this is all in vain. It doesn't work like that. You can't take your last handful of peace to make yourself grow anew again.

There aren't going to be any seeds flying through the air for you to replant yourself in an attempt to grow back into the lush character you once had. There aren't going to be any droplets of rain falling from the weeping clouds for you to drink up and sate your thirst. There aren't going to be any people with compassion overflowing like magic to touch your ashes and bring them up like sky-scraping trees again.

You're ruined, and that's your problem.

Many argue that anger is often triggered by someone or something else and therefore, those who are angry should have leniency when it comes to deciding who holds the fault on their shoulders.

They might argue that those who are angry to set to flames what has spurred them — to light a domino around them in anger and let it spread to others it touches. They might argue that anger is a necessary feeling, that without that particular feeling, there is no fiery effect that courses throughout the world. They might argue that such a passionate emotion deserves the utmost preservation and that it helps people bring out their true colors if you happen to irritate them just enough. And of course, in all the glory of mundanity, there is always a hidden character that can be coaxed out by anger itself.

With all due respect, I beg to differ.

Anger does not bring out the true nature of someone. It only obscures it. It only twists their nature into someone born of evil, as if something was shot into their veins like a dose of morphine as pain killer. Except, fury stimulates the emotion itself rather than dulling it. That's just what anger is.

Take, for instance, finding out that your spouse had an affair with a close friend of yours. We all know this classic love triangle, so to speak — when three parties are all connected in some way because of love. After discovering this painful truth, fury might replace all feelings of love and mirth within you, and anger consumes it, taking your most adored attributes away. You lie that you never cared about your spouse before. You lie that they were never the diamond you saw them as. They were perhaps coal, just those gray lumps that leave a bitter aftertaste upon receival. No one wants coal. No one wants that cold lump on their reputation when sweet nothings and gifts could fill it. But hey, you were angry, so you called them out with all those obscenities. You told them you didn't love them — that you never loved them in all those years of marriage.

What can you do about it?

You can't snatch back all those words that spewed out of your mouth in a geyser of emotion. You can't ameliorate the situation by explaining that you were only acting out of pure anger without heart. They might understand, perhaps, and apologize for their own adultery in the best case scenario, but the worst thing is that all those words you've already lashed at them — all those insinuations that they were just coal — have already become imprinted in their hearts. And it hurts. It really does — no matter how forgiving they may be and how remorseful they are for being unfaithful to you.

A diamond can only ever become a diamond if they have been under extreme pressure, and you're sure to see the diamond they really are after letting loose that untamed fury you had no thought to restrain.

Calm down before you speak out of anger, and avoid all the hard times that might result from your inability to restrain yourself before reasoning with someone in the face of a conflict.