Is Anger really worth it?

 

Is Anger really worth it?

I returned from two very different types of vacations over the past two months. While, both were relaxing I have returned from each with very mixed emotions. In one of these, the word anger was thrown to me quite loosely and almost in every conversation that I tried to initiate. That actually got me thinking.

 "Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." When I first heard that quote, I was amazed and thought it to be shrewd advice. Later when I actually delved into the origin of the quote it almost opened a new avenue of thinking. In 1998, Irish-American author Malachy McCourt was quoted as saying, ‘’I had a murderous rage in my heart of Limerick, the humiliation of coming out of the slums,’’ he says of his hometown in Ireland, the setting of his brother Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, ‘’Angela’s Ashes.’’ ‘’It made you feel like nothing and there was no place to go but down. It was assumed we’d be low-class the rest of our lives. But who can you blame? Governments and churches that are gone now? It’s useless. Let those things live rent-free in your head and you’ll be a lunatic. Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.’’

 

For the past year, I have held onto resentment a lot, often knowingly. I have resented the fact that I had to fly back to my hometown at Howrah at very short notice due to a medical emergency. Dealing with high levels of stress at work coupled with very little sleep for several months often elicited rapid anger responses. There were situations where I felt disregarded or mistreated, and that coupled with being a caregiver kept me on the edge.

It was only later on reflection that realization dawned that I was better placed than most people in this country. I did not have to worry about financial resources, did not have to arrange continuous appointments with doctors. Everybody around me were extremely supportive & I had a lot of people to fall back upon. For the first time in my life, I had gone back to one of the hymns we sang at school – “Count your blessings, name them one by one”. I did count my blessings.

More often than not we fail to understand that anger is just the beginning of a set of more complex emotions. In reality, anger and fear often go hand in hand. In fact, anger is often a secondary emotion that only arises when a person continues to feel unsafe. When someone is habitually angry – it might be because they are habitually afraid, vulnerable, sad, or anxious. You might just hate the 14 hours you are working for every day, and that triggers you.

 However, is anger really as destructive as it is portrayed to be?

 Today, my best friend asked me a very pertinent question – Who likes anger? Nobody does. Our culture condemns anger as a bad emotion and even a sign of weakness. On the flip side, we praise those who don’t show their anger as "well-bred," "intelligent," and "sophisticated." We’ve upheld people who tend not to show anger as model citizens. People often fear anger and tend to stay away from people who are always angry.

Recently, the Indian womens’ cricket captain, Harmanpreet Kaur, was widely criticized and later suspended for showing her wrath at the on-field umpires and then at the opposition captain. She said things which were unbecoming of a woman leading a team & to whom little girls around the world look upto. I had a long discussion with a very close friend about this episode and a very pertinent takeaway from that conversation was – “But you know you cannot break your office Bloomberg terminal, just because you are angry.” Yes, there are always better ways to deal with situations not in your favor.

On the flipside, anger also has a positive twist. Anger, much like joy, is believed by most to be an approach emotion instead of a withdrawal one. It can motivate us rather than making us retreat. Hence, comes the much-written topic about channeling your anger in the right direction. While the internet will give you multiple examples of athletes who used their anger to do better, one might just find that anger is actually holding her back. That has happened to me over the last few months. Not living in the present, and holding onto anger made me almost demotivated with every step I was taking in my life and career.

One day, one of my closest friends (I do have a set of immensely supportive ones) sat down and explained how I cannot explain to the world how I work, the ups & downs we face in the corporate world everyday & the biggest point – “You cannot change anything by just being angry. Let go. Let go of that voice which says I deserved a bigger pay hike, I deserved a fatter pay check, I deserved more respect.” While a human brain is not wired to just let go and unpleasant thoughts do pop up from time to time, I have tried to listen to my friend in taking steps to be better. Upskilling myself, reading more, writing more & just researching more on my work has helped me immensely.

 If you ask me, and I am no psychologist, often when you feel angry try to identify the trigger, and then ask yourself whether losing control was all that necessary, to begin with. Could anything reasonable be done to get back in control. If not, let the situation play out. Overreacting and losing control of one’s emotions just makes the situation worse. At that point not only is the situation out of control but your emotions are out of control as well. So, the solution: get all the information before reacting, and then react in a calm effective, and assertive manner. Its then you realize that there are bigger things in this world to worry about.

On a totally different context, I had not travelled in trains for ages. Little did I realize train travel can give you time to reflect. It was on the train back to Bangalore from Chennai that I thought of penning this down.