Anger rocks.
Anger’s awesome.
But it’s the Rodney Dangerfield of emotions – anger just gets no respect.
They make jokes about it.
They make comedies about it.
Like Anger Management, with Jack Nicholson (who could use some).
Remember the line from the Billy Crystal movie, City Slickers?
“If anger were people, you’d be China.”
Here’s the secret behind anger, and here’s what makes it fabulous:
At heart, anger is a desire for change.
If you don’t like the way your life is going and you’re angry about it, that’s great.
It just means you want things to be different.
Now, what you do with the anger is what matters.
You can’t say, “I’m angry, and I want my life to be better, so I’m going to shoot people and rob banks.”
Not exactly.
For alcoholics and addicts, especially, anger must be managed.
When other people get very upset, they…well, not being one of them, I really don’t know what they do.
I can tell you what they don’t do—they don’t go out and buy half a case of beer, drink it, and get behind the wheel of a car or truck.
So here’s something to recognize about anger.
It’s not a character defect in the sense that your character is defective because you feel angry from time to time.
Or even a lot of the time.
Anger is an emotion. It is a feeling.
Your feelings are perfect and cannot and should not be criticized.
You don’t have to be afraid of your anger, either.
Instead, we have to change our language, so that we can approach the situation differently and more effectively.
If you say, “I’m angry,” there is literally no separation between you and anger.
In fact, you are anger at that moment.
And if anger were people, you might well be China.
So instead of telling yourself “I’m angry,” try this on: “I’m noticing anger.”
Noticing something is different from being something.
If you are anger, you might as well head to the liquor store and buy that half a case, because there’s nothing anyone can do for you.
But if, by contrast, you are simply noticing anger, now there’s a little bit of separation between you and it.
And in that separation lies grace.
It’s the moment that lets you pause and reflect.
What triggered my anger?
What is an appropriate response, instead of an inappropriate, potentially dangerous, illegal or even lethal reaction to it?
If you can notice anger and recognize that it is a desire for change, you are ahead of the game.
If you become your anger, however, you remain behind the 8 ball.
I mention all this because yesterday I took our guinea pig to the animal hospital for treatment.
Poor Fenway wasn’t doing very well.
Maybe the veterinarian wasn’t doing very well either.
I hate to say it, but she was short, condescending, and in a word, very unpleasant.
If I wasn’t ready to commit to $600-a-day for hospitalization, she was basically saying the guinea was going to die and it would be all my fault.
Not what I wanted to hear.
I’ve been sober awhile, so you could say I responded instead of reacting.
In the old days, I would have given her a piece of my mind.
The problem is that I did that too often, and there aren’t that many pieces left.
Instead, I just took a long look at her and thought to myself, “This is how you treat somebody whose pet is potentially dying? With this kind of thoughtlessness?”
And then I remembered that some people are better at dealing with animals or things, than people, which is why they choose careers like, well, being a veterinarian.
Or maybe she was just having a really bad day.
She was clearly waiting for me to fill the space with some sort of response, and she probably could tell I wasn’t too happy with the whole situation, or with her.
But I remembered that God did not put me on this earth to educate veterinarians about their bedside manner.
Not my job.
That’s what happens when you can notice anger instead of being consumed by it.
The good news is that the guinea pig is actually getting better. He ate some lettuce for the first time in a week.
And I don’t have to go back to the animal hospital to make an amend for what I might have said or done in the heat of the moment, because I kept my big mouth shut.
Yes, anger is fabulous because it indicates a desire for change.
Change is fabulous because there’s no law that says that we have to stay in any particular unhappy situation, whether it’s addiction, a bad marriage, or even an unpleasant encounter at an animal hospital.
Notice anger and understand it for what it is.
It’s just a feeling, not a defect in your character.
Don’t let anger own you, ruin your day, or ruin anyone else’s.
And by the way, guinea pigs make fabulous pets.
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Photo: Getty Images