The 7th Capital Vice

Overturned the tuner and busted a radio. Smashed a TV screen. Broke a door. A stone was flighted and a skull was cracked. Broke a shuttle racquet and a bone while at it. Flunked a test. Smashed my spectacles. Kicked at a bi-cycle and broke its mud guard. Hammered a bike's petrol
tank and caused a dent. Used never before used words in a letter. Hit a face and got one back as a souvenir. Next time got one for free. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", it seems.
The root cause of all the above is same. Anger.
Every-time my ears went red, I just crashed and burned. Anger is associated with a demon no less than the Satan himself. So you can fathom its destruction.

Growing up, we are taught that there are seven deadly sins. We all know the big ones... gluttony, pride, lust. But the thing you don't hear much about is anger. Maybe it's because we think anger is not that dangerous, that you can control it. We think its ok to be angry sometimes. We even think that it must have not even made the cut, when a list of the cardinal sins was made!

But the point is, maybe we don't give anger enough credit. As far as I’ve known of it, it can be a lot more dangerous than we think. After all when it comes to destructive behavior, it did make the top seven. Maybe as a venial sin, but it did make it. So what makes anger different from the six other deadly sins? It's pretty simple really, you give into a sin like envy or pride and you only hurt yourself. Try lust or coveting and you'll only hurt yourself and one or two others. But anger, anger is the worst... the mother of all sins... Not only can anger drive you over the edge, when it does, you can take an awful lot of people with you.
So clearly, Anger is underrated.

John Mirk asks men to "consider how angels flee before them and fiends run toward him to burn him with hellfire." Simply put, the next time you are at the breaking point, think what your action can cost. Or maybe think of Homer J Simpson, Like I do!

If Tomorrow Never Comes

A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. Never leave that till tomorrow, he said, which you can do today. This is the man who discovered electricity. You think more people would listen to what he had to say. Well, not really!

I for one, is guity of this. Ever since I got my senses going (not too long ago), I've been putting off doing things at the "right" time, only to regret later. There would be one or the other trivial excuse for it. Right from not enough ink in the pen to not the "appropriate" time.

I don't know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I'd have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you're wrong? What if you're making a mistake you can't undo?
The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can't pretend we hadn't been told these. We've all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day.

Having said that, still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today's possibility under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying.