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Anger – my old friend
I ventured into stoicism almost a decade ago to manage my anger. It manifested in various ways -hatred towards oneself, annoyance towards the world, just cynicism towards everything. A wave of anger which was loud for mere moments but ate me up from inside.
Anger is not sustainable for a healthy life. The only thing anger sustains is anger itself. Anger fuels anger. I have lost my temper a few times since 2013 and those 30 seconds of explosive vocal anger hurt no one else as much as it hurt me. I learned. I learned anger does me more harm than it does others. The others see the thirty seconds of anger, but no one sees how that anger eats you from inside. I needed to stop being angry all the time – not only for having healthy relationships with others, rather for maintaining my sanity.
This brings me back to yesterday. I lost my temper – thirty seconds of shouting at a bank person for not doing the job properly, then complained to his boss. Over the last few weeks, I had given ample suggestions to improve but he did not. His delay in properly filing the paperwork almost led to me paying a fine. I snapped. I could have told the same things without getting angry, but I chose otherwise.
Someone might question why it bothers me so much, it is just one time? Well, think of it as falling off the wagon. You do not know when that one smoke a week becomes half a pack a day.
Anger is okay, acting with anger is not.
I keep forgetting I am human. Humans have emotions. Anger is an emotion. It is okay to be angry, but the moment I use that anger to justify my actions, I give in to anger.
A man thinks himself injured, wants to be revenged, and then – being dissuaded for some reason – he quickly calms down again. I don’t call this anger, but a mental impulse yielding to reason. Anger is that which overleaps reason and carries it away.
Seneca, On Anger 2.3.1–2, 4
The best solution to anger is a delay – let the anger pass. Walking away from a situation that angers you is the best way to handle but sometimes we cannot. Sometimes we need to act with reason even with anger simmering in our psyche. I think somewhere over the last few years I forgot how to manage anger feels like.
Anger was the natural expression of the cumulative frustration and ideally, I should have assessed and acknowledged but I did not, hence the outburst. But it lasted less than a minute and at no point, I lost control. After that, I have acknowledged and the best, I can do is to be cognizant that just because I have not lost my temper in years does not mean that I haven’t lost the capacity to be angry – like this time when a situation arises, I might feel anger again. But I can choose to not act due to anger.
The choice to be angry
Some things are in our control and some things are not. Anger works the same way. Did the anger control me? Or I controlled the anger? Anger can be a useful tool to express dissatisfaction, but the distinction is how to do that and how deliberate you are about it. This time was not deliberate, I lost control and anger controlled me. I was surprised and ashamed.
Let time pass, I shall identify why I did that, what could I have done better and do better the next time. Not getting angry for such a long time, I lost touch with how to manage when I get angry. I think this situation was a reminder our those demons can always come back and we have to be aware of who we are and prepared for what we are capable of to be able to handle it.
Anger as a habit
You want to be good at something, be diligent at it. If you want to quit something, abstain from it. Simple, eh? As I said earlier, Anger fuels anger. Like every habit, the more you do, the better you become yet. A master runner will find it difficult to run after not running for 2 months. An amateur runner will become better after running half an hour every day for two months. Every time I will give in to anger, I intensify it. Emotions and habits are nothing without the corresponding actions and the more I strengthen them.
My goal is to nip these morbid habits in the bud. Like this time, I may go years without losing my temper, but if I do not control it now, this ends up growing, hardening in resolve controlling me and eventually consuming me.
I kept free from distress today, and again next day, and for two or three months after; and when occasions arose to provoke it, I took pains to check it.
Epictetus
I can choose to be defeated and I can stand by myself and conquer my demons. I stand strong as I make it a habit to stay strong.
It is been so long since I have written something, this all seems alien. But I miss it. Writing, rather journaling my dark thoughts was therapeutic. Maybe this post restarts it.
The above image is clicked in Bali – Sekkumpul falls. Please follow my Instagram for more travel updates. Here is a link to another post about stoic reflections
