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Key points
- Anger is the most contagious emotion.
- The worst thing about living in an angry world is turning into what we despise.
- We must decide if we want to be angry, irritable, impatient, critical, annoyed, resentful, and rigid.
- Anger is less of an issue if we don't waste time justifying it; justifying is the real anger problem.
It’s perfectly understandable that we’re becoming more irritable, impatient, annoyed, critical, resentful, angry, and less able to see other people’s perspectives.
Anger is the most contagious emotion. Whether it’s in person, on opinion shows, or on the Internet, we’re likely to absorb the negativity of irritable, impatient, annoyed, critical, resentful, intolerant people.
The worst thing about living in an angry world is turning into what we despise. We react to jerks like jerks. We hate people who hate. We’re disrespectful and complain about feeling disrespected. In reaction to narcissists (those who feel morally or intellectually superior, with an inability to see other people’s perspectives), we become narcissistic. We bristle at politicians calling each other opportunists or hypocrites. We're gleeful when the same anger that sweeps political parties into power sweeps them out of it.
You Have a Right to Be Angry
Whatever form your anger takes, it’s understandable and justifiable. But there are more important questions:
- Do you want to be angry, irritable, impatient, critical, annoyed, resentful, and rigid?
- Is that the space you want to occupy in this, your only life on earth?
The Wrong Focus
Anger is an attribution of blame. Blame keeps us focused on our perceptions of what other people do wrong, which makes it all but impossible to see what we’re doing wrong. Then we feel mistreated and bewildered by the negative reactions we get.
But it's worse than misreading how others perceive us when we're angry. The external focus of blame makes it unlikely that we’ll grasp how anger transforms us. Chronic anger and resentment:
- Make us reactaholics; other people "push our buttons"
- Relegate positive passion (conviction, meaning, purpose) to the impulse to avenge or punish
- Degrade sex life
- Deteriorate fine motor skills (never choose an angry or resentful surgeon).
Chronic anger increases the risk of:
- Heart disease, stroke, cancer, hypertension, and mood disorders
- Alcoholism, drug addiction, and compulsive behavior, such as workaholism
- Minor disorders like colds, flu, headaches, stomachaches, muscle aches.
Because it requires narrow and rigid focus on a perceived threat, anger necessarily distorts perceptions of reality. Chronic anger makes us perceive threats everywhere. It makes us easily insulted and creates a degree of paranoia. It makes us petty and vindictive.
In relationships, chronic anger creates continual power struggles. It did not evolve to aid communication or negotiation; it evolved in all mammals to control and neutralize perceived threats (mostly ego threats in humans), by devaluing, warning, threatening, or intimidating.
More Passion, Less Anger
It’s easy to conflate anger with passion. Some people think they need anger to right a wrong. In fact, we’re far more likely to commit a wrong than to right one when angry. To right a wrong without committing one requires passion.
The difference between anger and passion is crucial to staying sane in an angry world. Anger prepares us to fight, punish, tear down, destroy. Passion prepares us to build, create, improve, appreciate. Anger produces a politics of bombast. Passion brings a politics of hope. Anger leads to exhaustion and depression. Passion leads to purpose and conviction. And of course, passion is more likely to yield positive outcomes.
Don’t Be Fooled
There’s a bit of research in which some subjects report beneficial effects of anger. But self-report is a seriously flawed measure of real-world anger, which is an attribution of blame, with an inability to see other perspectives. I learned early in my career of working with family abusers that you get an entirely different—and more accurate—appraisal of real-world anger by interviewing family members and coworkers. Anger makes it impossible to evaluate our own behavior and to see its effects on others.
It’s Justifiable, But Don’t Justify It
Of course, everyone gets angry occasionally. Anger isn't an issue if we don't waste time justifying it. The more we justify it, the longer it lasts; it greatly prolongs an emotional and physiological state that evolved for short bursts of energy. The ill-health effects of anger cited above are less the result of how angry we get than how long it lasts.
The urge to justify is revealing. It rises from a perception that we’ve violated personal values, so we need to justify it, mostly to ourselves. Have you ever felt the urge to justify the more humane emotions of compassion or kindness?
In any case, we can stay sane in an angry world if we view our own anger as just a passing emotion and refrain from making judgments until it passes. We must realize that when angry, we’re:
- Unable to see other perspectives.
- Most likely exaggerating and oversimplifying (the evolutionary function of anger is to amplify and magnify perceived threats)
- Less able to control impulses and tolerate frustration
- Likely to violate our deepest values and act against our long-term best interests
- Probably more self-righteous than right.
We should not try to drive, negotiate, analyze an issue, or do anything important until we’ve regulated this temporary state that has prepared us to fight, when we really need to learn more, solve a problem, or be more compassionate.
Once again, anger in all its forms is understandable and justifiable, as are the negative reactions to our anger that we inevitably get from others. The larger issue is this: Do we want to contribute to—and succumb to—the emotional pollution of this increasingly angry world?
