It is really hard to avoid lashon hara at major meals. Does anyone have suggestions? I take lashon hara very seriously because I view it not just as a halachik violation, but also as a violation of a moral code - which is not to say I don't slip up, but it is to say I would like to get better.

Today we were discussing an institution at dinner that I felt much feminist rage towards. I expressed this rage at the time, feeling it was important to "get the word out", but after I wondered - how much does getting the word out to five people help? How much of it was my just needing to vent my rage - which goes into lashon hara territory?

Furthermore, I was told that a major question in shidduchs today is: What is s/he like in anger? In the wake of my storming out of the Thanksgiving meal, I am asking myself that question. It's funny - most of the things that anger me are ideological - I tend to beleive in forgiving for the sake of forgiving, in choosing not to get mad at you even if you've done something "objectively wrong", because not being an angry person, and having a good and peaceful relationship with you are both more important than whatever wrong was done - I guess its a position of being so firm in the rightness of my position that I don't need to get angry. When I do get angry, it's like a wave - it rises high, but it passes quickly, and my anger just evaporates. I have never cursed out anyone and I don't think I've said things I don't mean in anger - but I have said hurtful truths.

I feel scared writing about anger. What if tomorrow I experience this unbearable anger, and it makes everything I have written today retroactively false? That's the thing with anger - being a non-angry person is a constant endeavor, and if you stop working on your anger management for a minute than you are likely to slide backwards.

The thing is, I don't regret tonight's anger - I am totally fine with being the kind of person who storms out of a room when insulted by a jerk, as long as I am having loving, non-angry relationships with my family and friends.