The air we breathe

Recently I saw something that upset me, and I began fuming and composing a nastygram in my head. But then I had an image of my nastygram being spewed out into the atmosphere, poisoning the air. And I too breathe that air.

The unkind things I do and say help create the world in which I live. Why make the world worse for myself?

There is a Buddhist saying about holding onto anger being like picking up a hot coal to throw at someone. The person who gets burned is you.

Or I have heard that holding a resentment or a grudge is like drinking poison and thinking the other person will die.

It's the only world we have -- and I don't just mean the planet Earth.