lifestyle

The Power of Anger and three other useless myths

Anger is a powerful emotion.  It must be true because we all feel the power of it as we pick up the lamp and throw it out the window or we are gripped by it as we yell out insults that we don’t even understand, in our anger.  Surely it is powerful.  But not if we take the literal, physical meaning of power.  Let me take you back a few lifetimes to high school physics to the equation for power:

Power = Work divided by Time                 (P=W/T)

Here we see quite a different dimension of the word power.  And here we see why anger may not be as powerful as we first thought. 

3 weeks ago I ordered a bunch of books from Amazon, including the review cards for my Super Kanji Challenge.  To cut a long story short, I have been very disappointed with how long it has taken my order to arrive at my door.

I crafted a careful but angry email complaint, and sent it off feeling slightly better.  They replied with an incoherent email full of excuses and I felt more angry again.  I replied in my anger with an even more forceful message.  They replied with an apologetic but unhelpful repeat of the last message.  By this time I was very angry…until I caught myself. 

How powerful was this anger?  How much work did it do over how much time?  Up to that point, it had taken me a couple of hours to research, write, read and fume over a handful of sites, forms, and emails.  Over this time, my anger realistically did zero work for me.  There was no happy resolution, there was no feeling of relief, I didn’t get my books any faster and I didn’t feel any better.  My anger was definitely not powerful.  All that it did was raise my temperature, cloud my judgement, negatively effect my productivity and waste my time.  I should have known better. 

If anger was such a powerful emotion, then surely it would do some work for us.  Unfortunately, it simply doesn’t have the goods.  Anger is usually associated with negative consequences.  Hardly ever will it work in our favour.  If you look at it this way, the idea that anger is a powerful emotion is myth number 1

Myth #2

Anger is a sign of strength.  Various studies have linked anger with effective negotiations and perceived status, but strength is another matter all together.  Who is the stronger person, the one who jumps to conclusions and lashes out at someone in anger, or the one who tries to step into the other’s shoes and help the situation?  Anger is no more a sign of strength, than love is a sign of jealousy.

Myth #3

Anger is cool.  Perhaps if you live in a superficial, Hollywood world, then anger may get you some credibility.  If you are like the rest of us, and live in the real world, then you will realise that balancing your emotions and displaying the real you is cool.  If you only have one observable emotion, then you are seen as mono-dimensional and shallow, if that emotion is anger then you are known to be dangerous.

Myth #4

If you feel angry, you have to be angry.  The feeling of anger is natural.  For all sorts of reasons, anger will be a constant player in your life if you understand that the world isn’t as it should be.  However the emotion of anger doesn’t necessarily have to end in the behaviour of anger.  Anger can lead people to reckless driving, violence, kicking doors, high blood-pressure and crime.  Don’t let this be you.  The productive outlets for emotional anger include:

• Talking over the issue
• Positive action which changes the issue
• Learning valuable lessons and acting on them
• Honest, sincere, and transparent confrontation

Try to remember this next time you feel anger rising in your blood.  It will be very hard to manage, but if you practice, eventually you will begin to feel your anger without actually becoming your anger.  You will then be in control of your anger rather than it controlling you.

Thanks

Tom