Recently in one of the replies to a ‘Helpee’ -- one who has been making remarkable progress in ‘controlling’ his anger, well, he was told explicitly to give up such considerations of ‘control’, or perhaps the new ‘Helper’ only wished for our client to de-emphasize what had otherwise been working out really well for himself up until now.
Somehow I think some clouded and imprecise thinking is involved in such advice. Again, and I am sorry to bring this up, ‘again’, but the new Helper seems to be using the Term ‘Anger’ to refer both to the Underlying Causal Emotions and Thinking Patterns that stir up Angry Behaviors, and to the actual Active Anger Manifestations (such as slamming the Office Computer into the trash can, or cussing out the Mail Room Boy for taking his break why your ‘Priority Package’was sitting on top of his Cart), and such Manifestations are really our only concern here. Everyone but the New People have heard this before, but since we are getting new people, and since they don’t seem to be catching up on the History here before posting their own ‘unique’ views, well, I must say it again, that it is logically silly to say that “Anger Causes Anger”. It means nothing. It is a logical tautology, like defining the color red as red, or a loud volume as loud. It is defining the term against itself, and therefore depending upon whatever mistaken assumptions a person has toward that word, either from its use as describing a Cause or its use in terms of signifying an Effect. To make things clearer, in regards to our Understanding of Anger, we should simply all acknowledge that Angry Behavior is caused by the Emotion of Hate. We ‘get’ angry at things we ‘hate’. Yes, if we ‘hated’ less, certainly we would also be provoked to Angry Responses in a decreased proportion. But, for many prone to angry behavior, the underlying ‘hatreds’are all too real, rationally founded and even in a large degree justified by the events. Hatred for truly Bad Things cannot and should not be wished away. No Righteous Man should ever simply surrender to blatant Evil for mere convenience…. Such as “Oh, I get so worked up over people clubbing my cats to death and poisoning my dogs… I should really just let all of that go, for my own good and peace of mind… I am sure that somehow those sadistic monsters must have some valid and reasonable motive for their seemingly insane and perverted cruelty to the defenseless and innocent creatures of God…”
Anyway, maybe I am getting carried a bit away and so let us look at what the New Helper actually said:
vic602 wrote:….
….The object is not to control your anger, but simply eliminate most of it from your life. The telephone interrupting what you are doing is an undeniable annoyance, but certainly no cause for anger. Other people expressing their opinions opposite those you hold is also no cause for anger. This is an ego based anger. Maybe you perceive the person as threatening to your self esteem or a core belief you hold….
Well, yes, there seems to be a separation in thinking there from Cause to Effect. Only the inherent ‘Logic’ seems to have been skewed by the tendency to believe that ‘anger is caused by anger’, and so that ‘anger is the problem’… if that is supposed to mean anything within this logical fog of uncertainty. But the examples our new Helper gives! Yes, really seriously Anger prone people will indeed trigger on just about anything, no matter how trivial. But here on this page we are dealing with many people who have already made the first steps of ‘Picking their Battles’ and waving away simple little silly annoyances. After all, who has recently thrown an office chair through the Bosses window because of a ‘ringing phone’. Who has recently punched somebody in the face merely for expressing some different opinion about the weather? Let’s get serious here. In most cases People Have Valid Reasons For Their Anger.
That is why the First Rule of Anger Management is “There is Never Any Justification for Angry Behavior”. There is ALWAYS a better way of dealing with the Things we Hate then to get red in the face and scream and punch about it.
Anyway, how useful is it to tell an Anger Prone Person to NOT try to control his anger? My God! But the ONE THING most Anger Prone People are GOOD AT is controlling or trying to control situations. The primary cause of most of their frustrations and hatreds stem from the fact that they perceive situations to be slipping out of their ‘control’. Look at most Anger Prone People – they have rules and procedures for nearly everything and have decided opinions on what is right and wrong…. Their minds are always engaged and the Judgements never stop. If these people were God and if they were made All Powerful, then we would be living in a kind of a Perfect World, or at least in accord with some sense of Order, Morality or Justice. What they Hate most is when things slip out of their Control.
So they come here. HERE is where we tell them that they do not have to Give Up their Control, but that they may have to divert their Need to Control Situations to a new sphere, and that is in Controlling their own Behavior – their Thinking and their Planning, and how they decide upon the Actions they take in reaction to the events, hateful as they may be, that inevitably come their way. After all, in all of our lives, as reasonable and moral people, if there are not hundreds of things that we truly Hate, then, well, I just don’t think we are paying enough attention.
So telling Anger Prone People to relinquish their control is to effectively tell them to give up the only strength they really have going for themselves. After all, we all know dozens of real ‘losers’ and ‘slackers’, and what do they all have in common but a small urge and little ability to control anything in their lives. Really active and intelligent people don’t find it much a virtue to be surrendered and complacent to misery and hopelessness, though, as I have said, the losers find it easy enough to fall into that rut. But it hardly counts as ‘good advice’, I should think.
But, I may have misunderstood all of this. Please, anybody, let me know where I may be mistaken. Thank you all for your time.
