Something very familiar caught my attention in a public space the other day. I watched someone get very angry over what seemed like very little. The place where I saw this was crowded enough that I was able to watch this person over a period of time without drawing attention to myself.
The person I was watching kept getting angrier. It seemed like anything that happened, anything that was said, fueled their rage, and it made me wonder if the person was able to feel any emotion other than anger.
We’re in the middle of an anger epidemic. It’s easy to find people who seem to regard anger as their secret weapon, or regard it as a state that insulates them from the world. People who are essentially addicted to anger are confused about several things.
Anger doesn’t sharpen your sensibilities; it deadens them. It literally makes you stupid. It flattens your sense of perspective, it kills your curiosity, it kills your ability to listen. You in an angry state is not you at your best; it’s you at your worst. Is this really what you want to bring to the world?
The real question is why so many people find anger so attractive, and the answer has to do with the actual source of anger, which is always the same. Anger cannot arise without fear as its source. The apparent sources of fear are countless: fear of not being seen or heard, of not being taken seriously, fear of losing status, fear of not getting what we feel is ours, fear of annihilation.
This sort of existential terror triggers a state of anxiety, which is just another name for fear. Living in constant anxiety is a horrible feeling, partly because it makes you feel powerless. But a transformation happens when we get angry. Adrenaline is added to fear and transforms it into anger.
In case you haven’t figured it out, the attraction anger holds for people is that once adrenaline is added to the mix, the angry person doesn’t feel powerless anymore. Now they have the illusion (but it’s only an illusion) of feeling powerful.
If the only way you have to feel powerful is to be angry all the time, all of a sudden, anger becomes an attractive option, almost an end in itself. And if you haven’t been taught how to look at and digest the reams of confusing information we’re constantly being bombarded with, becoming angry with what you don’t understand is inevitable.
What we’re left with is a large part of the population who aren’t looking for solutions to problems they don’t understand; they’re looking for someone to be mad at, and someone to blame. And unfortunately, their anxiety is being fanned and manipulated by a person with nothing to offer them other than, you guessed it, someone to blame, and someone to be mad at.
Where do we go from here? I’d give anything to be able to answer, but I just don’t know. I do have some suggestions for dealing with an angry person, whether it happens to be you, or someone else. The most important thing to remember is this: an angry person is so wrapped up in their own thinking, they’re unable to hear reason, or any alternate view of the situation.
When any of us get that wrapped up in our thinking, when we become totally identified with our thinking mind, we have unknowingly separated ourselves from the rest of the universe. In that state of mind, we don’t feel much of anything, other than an all-consuming anger. And in an angry state of mind, how can you feel anything other than a sense of extreme aloneness?
Angry people are people who have lost all sense of connection to other people, and to the world. They’ve forgotten they’re part of something bigger, that they’re already connected to everyone, and everything. I’ve noticed over and over again how this one thing, remembering I share my being with everyone and everything, restores my sense of peace and well-being. In other words, it brings me back to myself because anger can’t live alongside peace and well-being.
Anger is a sign that you’ve gone away from yourself, that your thinking has run away from you, and run away with you. It’s a sign that you’ve divorced yourself from the rest of humanity. Most of all, it’s a warning sign that tells you you’ve sacrificed all your most valuable qualities for the sake of experiencing righteous indignation. It’s a trade-off that never has anything of value to offer you.
When you see this clearly, it becomes obvious that the only way you can lose yourself to anger is to lose sight of the beautiful fact that you’re already connected to everyone and everything. Keeping that truth in view allows you to bring the best of yourself to the world.
One last thing to remember about dealing with anger in yourself or in someone else. Anger is evidence of insecurity. Dealing with insecure people is much easier when you recognize it’s essentially insecurity you’re dealing with. Anger is just the way it looks.
If this article stirred something in you… pay attention.
That nudge might be your inner wisdom pointing the way.
🌿 Explore Gary’s offerings and book a call.
