Dear Assholes,

Here’s the thing. I’m done making Angry for you. I’ve been making it for going on 39 years, and I’m tired now. That’s too much time to spend making Angry for other people. I’m going to make my own Angry now.

And I’m not going to share it. It’s for me. I’m going to start hanging on to it. You can have the Sadness. I’m still making that. More than ever, really. But it doesn’t seem to work for me anymore. It just piles up and gets in my way. So I’m giving it to you.

I see what you’ve been doing with my Angry, and I don’t approve. You use my Angry to manipulate others. You use my Angry to sidestep facing yourself. You use my Angry to justify or excuse your lack of scrupals. You use my Angry to make your world in your image. You use my Angry to misdirect and obfuscate.

So you don’t get to use my Anger anymore. It’s mine. And you can’t use it that way. Too bad. So Sad.

Suddenly I seem to have come into a pretty big pile of Angry. The first thing I’m going to do with it is clear out all this Sadness. I’m going to use my Angry to transform my Sadness. And I’m going to give that Sadness to you. But it won’t be called Sadness anymore. It will be called Compassion.

I’m going to take my Angry use it to turn my Sadness into Compassion. For you. You have every need for my Compassion. You don’t understand what’s wrong with you. You couldn’t even begin to ask yourself the big questions. You think, at the end of the day, your big house and your big car matter. That used to make me Angry. Now it just makes me Sad.

The other thing: You don’t know Love. You think you do, but you’ve confused it with comfort and habit. And if, on the off chance, you, deep down, do realize that I’m right, you’ll blame someone other than yourself. That is so Sad. I’m Sad for you just thinking about it. It used to make me Angry– how can you so misunderstand something so central to the human condition at Love?

My theory: Deep down inside, you don’t think you deserve Love. You do though. You have no idea. That’s so Sad. And if I tried to tell you, you wouldn’t listen. That used to keep me giving you lots of Angry, too.

But I figured out something the other day. You ’ listen and it makes me Sad that you don’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway. You will never get better while you’re wrapping yourself in all that Angry I’ve been giving you. You will keep fighting and obfuscating and running away, so long as there is Angry to keep you motivated.

So you can’t have mine anymore.

Your Pal,
Gabe