Everyone experiences it, some more frequently than others.

It has the power to destroy relationships. Marriages can explode into divorces because of it. Best friends are friends no more if it gets between them. Sons use it to hate their fathers. Daughters hold grudges with it for years against their mothers. In a heated exchange between any two acquainted people, it usually wins and both of them lose.

Slam doors. Punch walls. Throw stuff. Anything in the house that gets in the path of its wrath risks damage and destruction.

At its most extreme level, it causes great bodily harm, even death. If it boils inside the soul for a length of time, it can lead a man to gun down innocent people. When it rages, all common sense is lost. All manner of moral decency gives way to an adrenaline rush that pushes the mind to want to hurt, to inflict pain, to invoke suffering.

It can stop as quickly as it starts, but beware when it slowly rises and its energy drives the mind to command the body to inflict intolerable harm.

Alcoholic beverages can fuel its energy. Its power thrives on certain drugs. It acts upon a sudden impulse or an unexpected circumstance. You never know when or where it will show up. It likes to flash its ugly face during high-speed road chases. It might suddenly appear in a grocery store, at a restaurant bar, in the crowd at a rock concert, in the bleachers at a Little League Baseball game, in the middle of a school hallway, or even inside a quiet church.

There are therapy classes for those who can’t manage it. Jails and prisons are full of men and women who have failed to control its force.

A child models it when he sees his mom and dad fight so much. When it takes hold of the mind, a kitchen knife, a large rock, a baseball bat, and even a soft pillow suddenly become weapons to commit felonies.

If a kid counts to 10, he might chase it away. A genuine apology settles it down. Asking and receiving forgiveness is the best way to heal from it.

Former commissioner of Major League Baseball Ford Frick once said that a decision made when you’re under its influence is never sound. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that with every minute you let it have its way with you, you lose another 60 seconds of peace of mind.

Thomas Kempis, a medieval Dutch religious author, said that while you think you can use it to make others as you wish them to be, you don’t realize you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

Mark Twain said it’s “an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

Sylvester Stallone said that there’s a natural law of karma that those people who use it to hurt others will end up being alone for the rest of their lives.

Canadian educator Laurence J. Peter said that if you speak when you are with a temper infected by it, “you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret.”

Anger is the answer to the riddle of the tempered mind. Someone once said anger is a punishment that we give ourselves for somebody else’s mistakes.

Author Shannon Alder wrote, “If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you’re allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.”

The Better Health Channel explains what exactly happens to our minds and bodies when we get angry. “Anger triggers the body’s ‘fight or flight’ response. Other emotions that trigger this response include fear, excitement and anxiety. The adrenal glands flood the body with stress hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol. The brain shunts blood away from the gut and toward the muscles, in preparation for physical exertion. Heart rate, blood pressure and respiration increase, the body temperature rises and the skin perspires. The mind is sharpened and focused.”

Philosophical author C. JoyBell C. wrote, “Anger is like flowing water; there’s nothing wrong with it as long as you let it flow. Hate is like stagnant water; anger that you denied yourself the freedom to feel, the freedom to flow; water that you gathered in one place and left to forget. Stagnant water becomes dirty, stinky, disease-ridden, poisonous, deadly; that is your hate. On flowing water travels little paper boats; paper boats of forgiveness. Allow yourself to feel anger, allow your waters to flow, along with all the paper boats of forgiveness. …”

The Mayo Clinic advises how we can manage our anger. In the heat of the moment, think before we speak. Express our displeasure in a nonconfrontational way. Walk away to calm down from a highly stressful situation. Don’t blame anyone for your anger. Instead, express what exactly makes you upset. Take deep breaths when your temper flares.

A relationship expert suggested that couples should hold hands when they argue to avoid anger. This advice sounds more ideal than practical.

The Avett Brothers sing a song that says when it comes time to leave this world, the mind and the heart should hold no anger, no hard feelings, and no leftover grudges.

“Lord knows they haven’t done much good for anyone,” they sing. “For life and its loveliness and all of its ugliness. Good as it’s been to me. I have no enemies.”

Now that’s sound advice. When you have no anger and no hard feelings about anyone anymore, what you get in return is permanent peace of mind.

Just imagine what this country would be like if we could do just that.

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com.