I was surprised last week when I received several email messages thanking me for my article, What To Do When Anger Strikes. I appreciated receiving these messages, but I was confused. This article was a StickyMinds featured article in 2005, so how did people come to be reading it now?

The mystery resolved itself a few days later when I noticed that a link to this article was included in a StickyMinds weekly email. (Thank you, StickyMinds staff!)

When I reread the article—having not read it since 2005—what struck me was that I wrote it during better times. Not that 2005 was an anger-free year. And sure, tempers flared back then just as at any other time and for all the usual reasons. But opportunities for anger-provoking situations seem so much more prevalent now during these difficult economic times. Even if you're lucky enough to still have a job, you may be facing stresses in your professional and personal life that are unlike anything you've experienced before. And if you've lost your job ...

So if I were writing the article today, I might add one item to my list of suggestions:

Recognize the potential for anger-provoking situations. Accept as inevitable that people and situations are going to push your buttons. Given the toll repeated bouts of anger can take on your health, well-being, and frame of mind, make a personal commitment right now to respond in a calm and composed manner. You might even resolve to ignore or laugh off some of these situations as simply not worth blowing your top. No matter who or what triggers a potential anger-provoking situation, you—and only you—are in charge of how you respond.

I might even make this the first suggestion in the list.