I have to respectfully disagree, Maria. There is a class of people that do have, even perhaps should have, the power to make me angry. It's a small class, but it's an important one: the people I care about, my family, my friends. I think TM alludes to that:
And yet it's unfortunate because everyone I'm angry at I like.
When we are close to someone, part of that closeness is by definition a surrender of some (not all!) boundaries. We let them inside our defenses, layer by layer. Some (spouses, children, parents) we let in very deep indeed. For others--friends in particular--we don't know how deeply they affect us until they do something that DOES make us angry, because only then do we realize how much power we have given to them to affect us emotionally.
Here's a
for the angry. I've been there. Hell, I was angry at my son this morning for farting around when he needed to be getting ready for school. But I was also angry at myself for being angry--it's not like he was being mean or mopey. He was just being four, and a pretty happy (if easily distracted) four. And I was angry at society for forcing me to structure my life around arbitrary schedules, and for making me enforce that on him at that age. But I apologized for yelling at him without cause, and he acknowledged he should do what we ask the first time, and we hugged, and I don't think I did lasting damage to him. I hope.
Now if we're talking about people whom you don't really care about--yeah, piss on them. Don't let them ruin your day.