“Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury which provoked it.”
—Seneca
This blog will often be as much about my own journey as it will be an effort to help others. But I hope that in sharing my troubles, perhaps doing so will help others with similar issues.
Today, my focus is on an old battleground foe and friend, anger.
Friend, you say? Yes. For who would keep something so negative to them for all their lives, if that thing did not in some way benefit them?
So has it been for me with anger. Anger is my shield. Anger is my power. Anger is my rush.
Anger is also my affliction, weighing on my internal composure and self-esteem. It is an anchor on my life and work and relationships, holding me back. It is an addiction which pushes people away.
I know I am not alone in this. Anger is a very common problem, especially in men. It is my belief that anger is at the root of many of society’s foremost ills: racism, war, sexual assault and domestic violence, law enforcement abuses, gang wars, substance abuse, political identity division, violent crime, and so forth.
I can’t solve those problems for everyone (and certainly not with a blog post), but I can control how it affects me. And the first step to doing so is to acknowledge HOW it affects me.
I feel like there are many triggers to my anger, although the resulting form it comes in is always much the same. Here are some of them:
- I find that when I need someone to do something, anger is my go-to instinct. I am not as good at requesting, at least not in the middle of intense situations. I get abrupt. I don’t necessarily yell but I become very direct and commanding. I say what I want done and I expect it to be done. But it doesn’t have to be that way—when calm, I am much more conciliatory and rational. So I can do it without anger; the trick is to get calm before the anger instinct kicks in.
- If I perceive some injustice, actual or imagined, I am likely to respond with anger. I have a very well developed sense of fairness, one which often exists only within the confines of my idealized world and certainly not in the real one. I still believe that fairness and justice and equality are key elements which should exist in the world. They are core values in me. Indeed, my anger at their abridgement in the world around me shows how much they matter to me. But I need to be better at recognizing what injustices can be righted, and what must be let go of for another day. And I must also be better at being cognizant of when the “win” I am seeking with my righteousness isn’t worth the sizable battle I am wagering.
- My third trigger is frustration at the things I can’t control, such as unexpected computer issues I am powerless to fix, terrible or slow drivers on the road and, to be frank, stupidity and laziness. This particular response is a key element which led me to espouse Stoic ideals, one of which is to let go of anything which you can’t control. It is an ongoing struggle, but it is probably the form of anger I am having the most success battling at the moment. I rarely get angry on the road anymore, and I make a better effort to understand the perspectives of others, rather than assuming they are stupid or lazy or up to no good (see trigger number two above).
- This last one is probably easiest for most to understand—I get angry when someone is using some form of attack on me, be it verbal or physical. This most often comes at work, when guests will attempt to use veiled threats to get what they want, such as threatening to call corporate on me or to leave a terrible Yelp review. That is not likely a fight I will back down from (although I should—as despicable as it is for someone to engage in what amounts to extortion or blackmail, it is far easier to appease in this situation than to be confrontational). Even while acknowledging that responding to such threats with similar force is perhaps even rational and acceptable to most, it is rarely the most intelligent way to handle such circumstances.
I could probably drum up several other sub-categories, but I believe all forms of anger I experience fall under one of the above four.
Here is the thing, though—it doesn’t matter how the anger happens. It is the same anger. It takes over your mind in that instant. You are capable of anything, both good and bad. The issue with anger isn’t the now superfluous adrenaline burst you gain from a perceived threat, which can aid you in truly dangerous situations, but the fact that the same anger almost always removes your rational self from the decision-making process. Your “lizard brain” kicks in and you act on instinct, never mind the consequences until you are no longer in danger. And those consequences almost always far outweigh the gains of going through the anger reaction itself.
This is why anger—a natural emotion we all exhibit—is so much more damaging in today’s world. Anger has outlasted its usefulness. Danger is not lurking around the corner. Sudden and violent death is not likely to come at you ever, much less in the next few seconds, not in the first world.
If you haven’t taken steps to control your anger, or worse yet, you accept it as a part of you and allow it free reign, then you are not living up to your full potential.
The second part of this series will focus on another side effect of anger that is entirely internal: addiction.