Due to experiences in a very difficult case, with a very difficult judge, and several other incidents over the past two years, I found I was becoming more and more impatient and angry. (To be honest, as those who know me are aware, I’ve always had a temper. On a scale of 1 to 10 [1 being always calm, and a 10 being completely out of control], I think I’m about a 4 on occasion [more on that later].) It wasn’t that I was about to burn down the world, shoot the neighbor’s dog, punch a cop, or assault a DMV worker, but my anger was affecting my relationships and elevating my stress. And while I may not be prone to road rage, I want to be the kind of person who is placid as stone and who reacts to adversity in a manner that inspires and attracts, instead of scares and repels.
Since most personal problems are due to living an unexamined life, I determined it was time for some self-examining. This is more easily said than done. To become more self-aware and get my anger under control, I, first, started keeping an “anger” diary. In it, I defined anger as any degree of upset. I determined any degree of anger would be honestly noted in my diary. By doing this, I hoped to better understand it and then be able to control it. So, with this objective, I kept a year-long anger diary.
After keeping my diary for a few months, I became very surprised. I learned that I had a more serious problem than I thought. On a daily basis, I was frequently over-reacting to computer glitches and technology difficulties with irritation and anger. Similarly, I was becoming upset with every difficult traffic problem. As part of this reactive behavior, I would impute malevolence on bad drivers, and I even half-seriously endowed inanimate objects, like traffic lights, with sentience and swore they were in conspiracies to slow me down. Pretty stupid, right?
One of my most revealing discoveries was that I was using anger as a self-motivation tool when struggling with new material in a dance class and in an acting seminar I was taking. I did this with the misguided belief that in order to focus my mind and body, I had to be my own bad coach and engage in a little self-flagellation. Not only did I learn how counterproductive this was, but I discovered that my self-directed anger was sometimes viewed by others as directed at them.
Also, aside from the often unavoidably tense and contentious conversations with opposing counsels (and, at times, clients in my legal practice), I noticed that when I had to draft documents to respond to abusive legal tactics, I was letting the contention cause such irritation that my corrosive attitude interfered with my concentration and editing skills. This is similar to people whose hearts shrink because they hold grudges. My own irritation at opposing counsels was shrinking my intellect and dampening my skills. So, we just don’t only have to forgive those who are guilty of great trespasses against us, but we have to forgive the innumerable small and trivial slights against us in everyday living and in our work. The heart and mind are infinitely more nimble when unburdened by even the slightest bit of anger toward ourselves, others, and things. So now I am trying to remind myself to be constantly forgiving of every imperfection I perceive in others. It’s not an easy task.
Even before this project, I also knew (but now I am even more acutely aware of it) that I become angry when I, or someone else, is being treated unjustly; when I feel I am being ignored; or when I feel I can’t count on others close to me to help with my burdens. Anger, in these situations, is used as an alarm bell, just like an infant throwing a temper tantrum. I also let resentment build when I am remiss in communicating expectations. For instance: At work, when I put off correcting employees or fail to remind them of my expectations and they continue with the same failures, I engage in anger displays that are really more a sign of my own deficiencies and failures to communicate, than those of my employees.
On the road, the most frustrating thing I discovered was that, after reminding myself to be calm while driving, it was hard to go a day, and sometimes even a few minutes, without some degree of anger creeping in when bad drivers jeopardized my safety.
With all of this self-examination data, I started making a conscious effort to react more calmly to all of these situations. To do so, almost every time I used my computer, got in my car to drive, or was confronted with issues at work, I had to use meditation and visualize myself acting calmly and positively in difficult situations. I also made it a point that when others did something that made me upset or angry, I tried to impute a justification or innocent motive for their conduct: If someone was driving too fast or cut me off, I imagined them rushing a loved one to the hospital, or being distracted by the death of their child, or by overwhelming pain, etc. I also have been making a more conscientious effort to communicate my expectations at work, and my isolation and need for assistance with loved ones.
In doing this, I realized some interesting things about my anger:
First, anger is used as a mechanism to excuse ourselves from taking responsibility for our own behavior which, in reality, often at least contributes, if not causes, the problem that made us angry (e.g., when we react to a computer problem by thinking, “My stupid @$%!##! computer!” instead of, “Hmm, that’s interesting. Is there something I did to cause this?” or, “How can I understand this situation better to avoid it?”). In reacting adversely, we waste time, energy, and we do not progress toward resolving the situation. Moreover, we can turn a negative experience into a positive one simply by keeping ourselves calm, retrieving a glass of tea while we do a computer reboot, or by calling the IT assistant. These are much better ways to spend our precious time than cursing at a computer that will not be moved by our anger (for only we, ourselves, are “moved” by our own anger – by becoming more stressed).
Second, when we become habituated to reacting angrily in traffic, we start queuing up our anger response, as if making snowballs to hurl at any provocation. Then, instead of driving in a relaxed state of awareness before a hazard even presents itself, we are preprogrammed to react with anger. Along with this (as stated in the first point), we become arrogant drivers with an inability to recognize our own faulty driving skills. Then, when a dangerous situation arises, and instead of our minds being relaxed and ready to think of the best way to avoid the danger, our first response to it is placing blame, instead of averting the danger.
Third, anger robs us of the ability to understand the person or thing in opposition to us. For instance, if we are busy imputing an evil motive or making assumptions about someone or some thing we’re angry with, we will often miss or disregard the other’s innocence or valid, sincere attempts to remediate the problem.
Fourth, instead of aiding us in a learning environment, anger tenses up our minds and bodies, making learning actually more difficult. A relaxed body and open mind are not only infinitely better to respond to emergencies (as stated above), but are better equipped to learn new things than a mind that is engaged in auto-flagellation. The reason is that while we’re engaged in the activity of castigating ourselves, we cannot simultaneously be learning. I was amazed that when I consciously stopped this reactive behavior, my acquisition of new information was exponentially hastened. If you are like me, please don’t wait a lifetime, like I have, to stop beating yourself up. Don’t be your own bad coach.
Besides anger’s more obvious risks, anger impedes vigilance in our dangerous world, slows our reactions to hazards, inhibits learning and self-awareness, diminishes accountability, and weakens our attitude. We thereby depress all of our potential for growth, success and fulfillment.
In reflecting on this, I remembered I had often heard that all human emotion has an origin and serves a purpose. So what is anger’s origin? And if it serves a purpose or benefit, what is it? What does this further teach us about ourselves?
As we came into consciousness, I think our basic human emotions arose out of conflicting and competing interests in our evolution. For instance, a sense of compassion and justice served our social needs, allowing us to work towards a common good and to bond with our family, clan, tribe, city, and eventually nation. This gave us the strength of the many to act as one. Yet, in our struggle to survive, life called upon us to either predate other species for food, or defend ourselves against homicidal associates or genocidal opposing clans. If, in engaging in those battles, compassion caused us to hesitate mentally or physically, our prey or foes could triumph over us.
In such situations, there is both a physical and psychological benefit in being angry: to steel ourselves for the violence that is necessarily or justifiably meted out against our prey or our enemies. To give in to anger is to abandon the inhibition of compassion and restraint, and to divorce oneself of responsibility for one’s actions. So, compassion is counterbalanced with anger; otherwise, our compassion would betray us when either beguiled or in a direct confrontation against an opposing force.
This is why (almost instantaneously and irrespective of the scope, volume, and/or depth of our anger) we frighten others or are frightened by those we see who are angry. Since anger is an emotion that allows us to divorce ourselves from responsibility for our actions (thereby causing us to either appear, or actually become, irrationally unpredictable and belligerent), then we will be viewed as unpredictable and capable of irrational violence. This will cause those witnessing our anger to retreat and head for high ground because, even if our degree of anger is minimal, they will not know what to expect. Therefore, an emotion like anger, that causes a person to deny or forgo any introspection or responsibility for his or her actions, can be very detrimental in many obvious, and not-so-obvious subtle ways, even when a person has a so-called right to be angry or upset, and even when the anger display is, relatively speaking, minimal.
When individuals, such as myself, fail to understand this, we are often surprised by the reactions of others around us to our anger. We think we are responding appropriately in stressful situations, when our anger is directed at ourselves or an inanimate object, without understanding that those who are exposed to our anger will invariably overreact to it. This is also why, when we are angry, we’ll do stupid things, like kick an object and break our foot or the object, or punch a wall and break a hand, or worse--unintentionally or intentionally hurt someone else.
Although I believe that, for the most part, anger displays are learned volitional responses to certain situations, I also came to recognize (in keeping my “anger diary,” and meditating about my life and my relationship to anger) that there is an innate component to anger. When confronted by danger to our physical or even psychological well-being, our conscious and subconscious minds kick into either a flight or fight mode.
In examining my own life, and connecting all the “dots” of my life’s history and experiences, I have come to realize that often, when I have been confronted with what I felt was an unjust attack upon my person or my allies (and even when I have witnessed attacks upon others outside my circle), I have instinctively (sometimes without deliberation), defaulted into the fight response and met aggression with aggression, which brought to bear its close companion: anger. This is something that I remember being a part of me since my first memories: I do not run, I fight.
In my life, I have stood up to many bullies. Let me share a few experiences:
When I was a scout, I successfully threatened to “cram my fist down the throat” of a taller, more brawny rock thrower who had been pelting me and a friend at a scout camp for several days with small rocks. I’ve also stood up to an older neighborhood bully who terrorized me and others at another scout camp. I paid for it with a punch, but then the harassment stopped. Later, as a river guide (and after a summer of enduring mean pranks from a much bigger co-worker who claimed to be a golden glove boxer), I found myself at the end of my wits, when the co-worker had intentionally rolled a boulder across my path, which barely missed severely injuring me. Fueled by my irritation, I abandoned caution, pushed him, and then bloodied his nose. Interestingly, he took it without fighting back and never bothered me or my friends again.
On another occasion, I rescued a hitchhiker from a beating by a bigger kid, but in turn, had my eyes blackened and nose shattered from his even-bigger gang member friend. (I learned, in the police report, that he wrestled in the heavy-weight division at his high school.) Still, later in my life, I awoke to chase off a would-be mugger and thief, whose hands were reaching for my throat, or, perhaps, the wallet in the pants that were serving as my pillow in my slumber in a park in Illinois. These are some of many other incidences when I have stood up for myself and others. Understand, all of the perpetrators in these events were much bigger than I was. As far as I can remember (other than defending myself and my property, on two occasions), I have never picked a physical fight with anyone, nor been aggressive with someone smaller than me.
Lest you think, “Oh, good for you,” or, “Great – another braggart,” let me reiterate that during most of those times, I was reacting almost instinctively and subconsciously. In each instance, there was an instinctual call to action from my anger. In each case, I either did not have time, or did not take enough time, to contemplate whether or not my reaction was the appropriate one. In the case of the early-morning, would-be park mugger-thief, my immediate roar and lunge at him at the moment I awoke to see a hand quickly moving towards my face and throat, was the right reaction. On the other hand, in the case of the hitchhiker getting beat up, a different, less-reactive response could have saved not just the hitchhiker, but also spared me from a beating.
As a final illustration of my fight response in the face of danger, I turn to a time, early in my career as an attorney, and in the military, when I awoke in the darkness in my government housing before my alarm had activated. Peering up from my bed, where I was sleeping next to my wife and my newborn son in a crib nearby, I could see a silhouette of a large man filling our bedroom door frame. What did I do? Within a split second of awakening, I ripped off my covers, jumped out and ran towards the silhouette, screaming with my fists cocked and ready. Luckily, the shouts of my father-in-law stood me down a second before I let my fists fly. Sleep, and my sudden awakening, had robbed me of the memory that he was there on a visit. He had arisen early and had come to our door to tell us he was leaving for home, back in Idaho.
So, that is me. I have an instinctual fight-before-flight reaction when confronted by danger. And that experience has taught me that when one fights, regardless of the intensity, whether manifest as an irritation or a rage, anger is often the fight-response’s companion. This tends to indicate that just as shyness, timidity, and diffidence can be an inherited personality trait, I suspect that the instinct to stand your ground and fight, and to have a temper, can be an innate personality trait.
The final component in my constellation of experiences with anger is that, although I love and respect my parents who thrived and triumphed even though they grew up in dysfunctional households with alcoholic fathers, and who were committed and dedicated parents, they were not paragons of calm, placid behavior in their relationship and in disciplining my siblings and me.
However, all of this is not an excuse. I have already made great progress throughout my life. It is more a recognition of the height of the mountain that I must climb. It also raises the hope that we can all understand our anger better, be better- equipped to master it, and not be too dismissive or unforgiving of those of us who struggle to remain calm. After all, metaphorically speaking, sometimes there may be a benefit in having individuals around you whose temper and fight response save you from a real intruder who comes early in the morning, in the dark of night, to do you harm.
Loren M. Lambert © February 28, 2017
Since most personal problems are due to living an unexamined life, I determined it was time for some self-examining. This is more easily said than done. To become more self-aware and get my anger under control, I, first, started keeping an “anger” diary. In it, I defined anger as any degree of upset. I determined any degree of anger would be honestly noted in my diary. By doing this, I hoped to better understand it and then be able to control it. So, with this objective, I kept a year-long anger diary.
After keeping my diary for a few months, I became very surprised. I learned that I had a more serious problem than I thought. On a daily basis, I was frequently over-reacting to computer glitches and technology difficulties with irritation and anger. Similarly, I was becoming upset with every difficult traffic problem. As part of this reactive behavior, I would impute malevolence on bad drivers, and I even half-seriously endowed inanimate objects, like traffic lights, with sentience and swore they were in conspiracies to slow me down. Pretty stupid, right?
One of my most revealing discoveries was that I was using anger as a self-motivation tool when struggling with new material in a dance class and in an acting seminar I was taking. I did this with the misguided belief that in order to focus my mind and body, I had to be my own bad coach and engage in a little self-flagellation. Not only did I learn how counterproductive this was, but I discovered that my self-directed anger was sometimes viewed by others as directed at them.
Also, aside from the often unavoidably tense and contentious conversations with opposing counsels (and, at times, clients in my legal practice), I noticed that when I had to draft documents to respond to abusive legal tactics, I was letting the contention cause such irritation that my corrosive attitude interfered with my concentration and editing skills. This is similar to people whose hearts shrink because they hold grudges. My own irritation at opposing counsels was shrinking my intellect and dampening my skills. So, we just don’t only have to forgive those who are guilty of great trespasses against us, but we have to forgive the innumerable small and trivial slights against us in everyday living and in our work. The heart and mind are infinitely more nimble when unburdened by even the slightest bit of anger toward ourselves, others, and things. So now I am trying to remind myself to be constantly forgiving of every imperfection I perceive in others. It’s not an easy task.
Even before this project, I also knew (but now I am even more acutely aware of it) that I become angry when I, or someone else, is being treated unjustly; when I feel I am being ignored; or when I feel I can’t count on others close to me to help with my burdens. Anger, in these situations, is used as an alarm bell, just like an infant throwing a temper tantrum. I also let resentment build when I am remiss in communicating expectations. For instance: At work, when I put off correcting employees or fail to remind them of my expectations and they continue with the same failures, I engage in anger displays that are really more a sign of my own deficiencies and failures to communicate, than those of my employees.
On the road, the most frustrating thing I discovered was that, after reminding myself to be calm while driving, it was hard to go a day, and sometimes even a few minutes, without some degree of anger creeping in when bad drivers jeopardized my safety.
With all of this self-examination data, I started making a conscious effort to react more calmly to all of these situations. To do so, almost every time I used my computer, got in my car to drive, or was confronted with issues at work, I had to use meditation and visualize myself acting calmly and positively in difficult situations. I also made it a point that when others did something that made me upset or angry, I tried to impute a justification or innocent motive for their conduct: If someone was driving too fast or cut me off, I imagined them rushing a loved one to the hospital, or being distracted by the death of their child, or by overwhelming pain, etc. I also have been making a more conscientious effort to communicate my expectations at work, and my isolation and need for assistance with loved ones.
In doing this, I realized some interesting things about my anger:
First, anger is used as a mechanism to excuse ourselves from taking responsibility for our own behavior which, in reality, often at least contributes, if not causes, the problem that made us angry (e.g., when we react to a computer problem by thinking, “My stupid @$%!##! computer!” instead of, “Hmm, that’s interesting. Is there something I did to cause this?” or, “How can I understand this situation better to avoid it?”). In reacting adversely, we waste time, energy, and we do not progress toward resolving the situation. Moreover, we can turn a negative experience into a positive one simply by keeping ourselves calm, retrieving a glass of tea while we do a computer reboot, or by calling the IT assistant. These are much better ways to spend our precious time than cursing at a computer that will not be moved by our anger (for only we, ourselves, are “moved” by our own anger – by becoming more stressed).
Second, when we become habituated to reacting angrily in traffic, we start queuing up our anger response, as if making snowballs to hurl at any provocation. Then, instead of driving in a relaxed state of awareness before a hazard even presents itself, we are preprogrammed to react with anger. Along with this (as stated in the first point), we become arrogant drivers with an inability to recognize our own faulty driving skills. Then, when a dangerous situation arises, and instead of our minds being relaxed and ready to think of the best way to avoid the danger, our first response to it is placing blame, instead of averting the danger.
Third, anger robs us of the ability to understand the person or thing in opposition to us. For instance, if we are busy imputing an evil motive or making assumptions about someone or some thing we’re angry with, we will often miss or disregard the other’s innocence or valid, sincere attempts to remediate the problem.
Fourth, instead of aiding us in a learning environment, anger tenses up our minds and bodies, making learning actually more difficult. A relaxed body and open mind are not only infinitely better to respond to emergencies (as stated above), but are better equipped to learn new things than a mind that is engaged in auto-flagellation. The reason is that while we’re engaged in the activity of castigating ourselves, we cannot simultaneously be learning. I was amazed that when I consciously stopped this reactive behavior, my acquisition of new information was exponentially hastened. If you are like me, please don’t wait a lifetime, like I have, to stop beating yourself up. Don’t be your own bad coach.
Besides anger’s more obvious risks, anger impedes vigilance in our dangerous world, slows our reactions to hazards, inhibits learning and self-awareness, diminishes accountability, and weakens our attitude. We thereby depress all of our potential for growth, success and fulfillment.
In reflecting on this, I remembered I had often heard that all human emotion has an origin and serves a purpose. So what is anger’s origin? And if it serves a purpose or benefit, what is it? What does this further teach us about ourselves?
As we came into consciousness, I think our basic human emotions arose out of conflicting and competing interests in our evolution. For instance, a sense of compassion and justice served our social needs, allowing us to work towards a common good and to bond with our family, clan, tribe, city, and eventually nation. This gave us the strength of the many to act as one. Yet, in our struggle to survive, life called upon us to either predate other species for food, or defend ourselves against homicidal associates or genocidal opposing clans. If, in engaging in those battles, compassion caused us to hesitate mentally or physically, our prey or foes could triumph over us.
In such situations, there is both a physical and psychological benefit in being angry: to steel ourselves for the violence that is necessarily or justifiably meted out against our prey or our enemies. To give in to anger is to abandon the inhibition of compassion and restraint, and to divorce oneself of responsibility for one’s actions. So, compassion is counterbalanced with anger; otherwise, our compassion would betray us when either beguiled or in a direct confrontation against an opposing force.
This is why (almost instantaneously and irrespective of the scope, volume, and/or depth of our anger) we frighten others or are frightened by those we see who are angry. Since anger is an emotion that allows us to divorce ourselves from responsibility for our actions (thereby causing us to either appear, or actually become, irrationally unpredictable and belligerent), then we will be viewed as unpredictable and capable of irrational violence. This will cause those witnessing our anger to retreat and head for high ground because, even if our degree of anger is minimal, they will not know what to expect. Therefore, an emotion like anger, that causes a person to deny or forgo any introspection or responsibility for his or her actions, can be very detrimental in many obvious, and not-so-obvious subtle ways, even when a person has a so-called right to be angry or upset, and even when the anger display is, relatively speaking, minimal.
When individuals, such as myself, fail to understand this, we are often surprised by the reactions of others around us to our anger. We think we are responding appropriately in stressful situations, when our anger is directed at ourselves or an inanimate object, without understanding that those who are exposed to our anger will invariably overreact to it. This is also why, when we are angry, we’ll do stupid things, like kick an object and break our foot or the object, or punch a wall and break a hand, or worse--unintentionally or intentionally hurt someone else.
Although I believe that, for the most part, anger displays are learned volitional responses to certain situations, I also came to recognize (in keeping my “anger diary,” and meditating about my life and my relationship to anger) that there is an innate component to anger. When confronted by danger to our physical or even psychological well-being, our conscious and subconscious minds kick into either a flight or fight mode.
In examining my own life, and connecting all the “dots” of my life’s history and experiences, I have come to realize that often, when I have been confronted with what I felt was an unjust attack upon my person or my allies (and even when I have witnessed attacks upon others outside my circle), I have instinctively (sometimes without deliberation), defaulted into the fight response and met aggression with aggression, which brought to bear its close companion: anger. This is something that I remember being a part of me since my first memories: I do not run, I fight.
In my life, I have stood up to many bullies. Let me share a few experiences:
When I was a scout, I successfully threatened to “cram my fist down the throat” of a taller, more brawny rock thrower who had been pelting me and a friend at a scout camp for several days with small rocks. I’ve also stood up to an older neighborhood bully who terrorized me and others at another scout camp. I paid for it with a punch, but then the harassment stopped. Later, as a river guide (and after a summer of enduring mean pranks from a much bigger co-worker who claimed to be a golden glove boxer), I found myself at the end of my wits, when the co-worker had intentionally rolled a boulder across my path, which barely missed severely injuring me. Fueled by my irritation, I abandoned caution, pushed him, and then bloodied his nose. Interestingly, he took it without fighting back and never bothered me or my friends again.
On another occasion, I rescued a hitchhiker from a beating by a bigger kid, but in turn, had my eyes blackened and nose shattered from his even-bigger gang member friend. (I learned, in the police report, that he wrestled in the heavy-weight division at his high school.) Still, later in my life, I awoke to chase off a would-be mugger and thief, whose hands were reaching for my throat, or, perhaps, the wallet in the pants that were serving as my pillow in my slumber in a park in Illinois. These are some of many other incidences when I have stood up for myself and others. Understand, all of the perpetrators in these events were much bigger than I was. As far as I can remember (other than defending myself and my property, on two occasions), I have never picked a physical fight with anyone, nor been aggressive with someone smaller than me.
Lest you think, “Oh, good for you,” or, “Great – another braggart,” let me reiterate that during most of those times, I was reacting almost instinctively and subconsciously. In each instance, there was an instinctual call to action from my anger. In each case, I either did not have time, or did not take enough time, to contemplate whether or not my reaction was the appropriate one. In the case of the early-morning, would-be park mugger-thief, my immediate roar and lunge at him at the moment I awoke to see a hand quickly moving towards my face and throat, was the right reaction. On the other hand, in the case of the hitchhiker getting beat up, a different, less-reactive response could have saved not just the hitchhiker, but also spared me from a beating.
As a final illustration of my fight response in the face of danger, I turn to a time, early in my career as an attorney, and in the military, when I awoke in the darkness in my government housing before my alarm had activated. Peering up from my bed, where I was sleeping next to my wife and my newborn son in a crib nearby, I could see a silhouette of a large man filling our bedroom door frame. What did I do? Within a split second of awakening, I ripped off my covers, jumped out and ran towards the silhouette, screaming with my fists cocked and ready. Luckily, the shouts of my father-in-law stood me down a second before I let my fists fly. Sleep, and my sudden awakening, had robbed me of the memory that he was there on a visit. He had arisen early and had come to our door to tell us he was leaving for home, back in Idaho.
So, that is me. I have an instinctual fight-before-flight reaction when confronted by danger. And that experience has taught me that when one fights, regardless of the intensity, whether manifest as an irritation or a rage, anger is often the fight-response’s companion. This tends to indicate that just as shyness, timidity, and diffidence can be an inherited personality trait, I suspect that the instinct to stand your ground and fight, and to have a temper, can be an innate personality trait.
The final component in my constellation of experiences with anger is that, although I love and respect my parents who thrived and triumphed even though they grew up in dysfunctional households with alcoholic fathers, and who were committed and dedicated parents, they were not paragons of calm, placid behavior in their relationship and in disciplining my siblings and me.
However, all of this is not an excuse. I have already made great progress throughout my life. It is more a recognition of the height of the mountain that I must climb. It also raises the hope that we can all understand our anger better, be better- equipped to master it, and not be too dismissive or unforgiving of those of us who struggle to remain calm. After all, metaphorically speaking, sometimes there may be a benefit in having individuals around you whose temper and fight response save you from a real intruder who comes early in the morning, in the dark of night, to do you harm.
Loren M. Lambert © February 28, 2017
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