Anger Management!

"Get Out! I never want to see you again!" I shouted at him as my muscle started to get tensed and I could literally feel my blood boiling. My eyes almost popped out of its socket as I stared at him.

What do you think is my emotion looking at the paragraph above? Does it depict sadness? Or do I sound surprised? Or am I flabbergasted? Well, I am sure you do not even have to think and you’d know that the feeling depicted in the paragraph above is that of anger. Think about it, why does it automatically come to your mind that the emotion depicted from the paragraph above is that of anger? Well, it is simply because we have experience anger! Each and every one of us has experienced it! Don’t we feel that our muscles start to tightened? Don’t we clench our fists and stare with our eyes? These are the natural physical responses to anger. Of course, physical responses vary with each person, some may clench their fists while some may stare and hence how one expresses their anger also depends on their personality. In fact, the expression of many of our other emotions is dependant very much on our personality. What do I mean by this? Here is an example, if my personality is that of a quiet and conservative person, I would not yell and stare at someone I am angry with, instead I would just walk away and cool down.

So when would one get angry? In my opinion, I think that one would get angry when one gets provoked or even when one does not get his or her way. However, this may vary for different people. Anger is a very subjective emotion in the sense that everyone gets angry at different things. What do I mean by this? For example, if a friend keeps pestering me, I would get angry and ask him to stop, but another friend might entertain that person therefore not get angry with him.

Interestingly, if you realize, we don’t usually feel anger alone instead we would feel a gamut of emotions that is to feel many emotions at the same time. Let’s look at a very real example. If your best friend were to get knocked down by an irresponsible young driver who was speeding and not concentrating on the road, how would you feel? I am very sure you’ll be devastated at your friend’s death and at the same time raging with anger at that irresponsible young driver.

Another interesting thing which I did not know is that emotions can be classified as primary or secondary. Anger is a secondary emotion while the other feelings associated with anger are primary emotions because they come before anger. This can also be seen from the above example where you got angry with the young driver because you were devastated at your friend’s death. Of course, anger is not exactly bad as it is a natural emotion, the actions that follows after one gets angry is the thing that might be bad. Using the same example, if you were a violent person, you would find for that young driver, confront him and may even give him a thrashing. This action would be bad and therefore it is not the emotion that is bad but it is what that follows that is bad. Hence we have to learn anger management.

What is anger management? In simple words, it is to manage your anger, that is, to control yourself from exploding, so to speak. Breaking it down, anger is a violent or bitter feeling against someone or something and is a natural emotion that everyone experiences. Management is the act or manner of managing; handling or control (These definitions come from dictionary.com)

What we can do is that we can clarify the other person’s intent, focus on the problem and not the person, describe your feelings of anger to the other person and lastly let go of the anger. What is the point of keeping that anger and keep having negative feelings against the object or person? It only makes things worse and so the best thing is to forgive and to forget. That’s what God teaches in the Bible. We should forgive and forget. Of course being humans, it is difficult and therefore it takes time, but I am sure it is possible.

In conclusion, I think anger management is very important and we all should learn to manage our anger.