Transformation

I'm reading The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.  It's a hard read--not difficult to read because of it's written expression but because of the subject.  I'm not finished it yet, so I won't review it.  What I want to post about is a scene in the book.  One of the soldiers experienced a horrific death of a friend.  He was hurting badly and wanted to hurt back.  He picked on a young, innocent water buffalo.  He shot off its tail: then its ears: its knee caps, etc.  You get the idea. He didn't want to kill it.  He wanted it to hurt, like he was hurting.

It reminded me of Richard Rohr's "If you don't transform your suffering, you'll transmit it."  You must choose to transform your bad feelings, change your mood, make yourself happy.  Of course, you can't perfectly, but you must force yourself to try.  You have to, if not for yourself, for the sake of others.