Do you ever get angry?
Anger is a broad word used to describe a basic human response to threat or frustration.
Sometimes, anger is healthy, but that is usually limited to the context of scaring away the perpetrator of an imminent physical threat (which, thank G-d is not a situation we tend to encounter frequently in our daily lives).
At other times, anger can be feigned. Feigned anger, properly distinguished, is not anger at all. It is a firm expression of displeasure that is the result of an emotionally controlled strategic or tactical decision specifically not made in anger. However, feigned anger, like fire, should be used with extreme caution, as it can easily spread, both in the person that thinks they are feigning anger and in those that the person feigning anger seeks to impact, to real anger of the unhealthy variety.
That is what I want to focus on here.
We all know it: the irrational, aggressive – ‘losing it’ – anger.
Are you sometimes consumed by fury?
For a moment, go back to that mental state. How did you feel? Were you in control of your life or was your self-discipline incapacitated by emotional forces?
If you’ve lost control, to whom have you lost it? Who’s in the driver’s seat of your life?
This isn’t your best ‘you,’ and you know it.
In the words of Judaic spirituality, when you succumb to anger, you unleash your inner hell. It’s your worst self. It’s toxic.
Oddly enough, it can also be seductive. This force, which destroys the quality of your life, can become an emotional drug; it poses as your friend, righteously presenting itself as ‘standing up for yourself’.
Think again. In the words of Job (5:2): Anger kills the fool.
To maintain management of our own lives, we first need to actively maintain self-awareness. We need to identify ‘red flags,’ internal foes that disrupt our personal equilibrium. Anger is a poison to the human system, and an impediment to living a meaningful life. So, when we feel anger, we need to see that red flag in our mind’s eye, and then aim for self-control, which – in the scope of life – is actually the first step in EFFECTIVELY addressing the looming issue.
But that will only work if we genuinely see anger in that light, not if we’re comfortable with the self‑righteous ‘losing it’ persona.
For millennia, Jewish tradition has taught that anger also reflects a lack of faith.
The equation is pretty simple: We become angry when we feel vulnerable to a threat or problem. When we believe in G-d, we can’t feel vulnerable. When we feel our faith in G-d, our worldview focuses on our Divinely-granted journey, our destiny, not our perception of vulnerability.
Anger competes with our sense of destiny, so we can’t allow anger to win.
Between any [potentially] anger-causing stimulus and our response, there is a gap. It is in that space that we get to choose our response. In order to choose a healthy response, that space needs to contain an emotional filter, and a core element of an effective emotional filter is faith.
Some problems may be solved, and some can only be managed, but either way, we need to choose a response that’s suitable for our life’s journey.
So pay attention to your anger-quotient. Reducing it will increase your quality of life.