Anger experts say that irritation, infuriation and agitation, is a natural emotion that builds inside anyone in response to threats, attacks, injustice and disappointment. It is not individuals and situations, which cause anger; it is one’s action towards individuals like Cinderella ill treated by unkind stepmother and envious stepsisters; or reaction to situations like mother-in-law torturing her daughter-in-law for not giving birth to a son.
Anger has its positive points. It helps us perform difficult functions to deal with problems and get going. The anger of freedom fighters and their struggle to throw away the chains of foreign rule was a good necessity. Protest democracy with demonstrations and fasts compel government to speed up reform. A social activist who feels no anger can never bring about a change.
Yet we are told that we must keep ourselves at a distance from anger. This is because it has its negative points, which outweighs the positive purpose. Angry people are more likely to make hasty and risky decisions. Passive anger is expressed with cold shoulder or a fake smile as pleasantness slips away. Aggressive anger is like matchsticks bursting into flames when the matchbox’s side strikes the chemical powdered head of the stick. If our mind is filled with angry all the time, it can have an earth-shattering effect on our daily life — marital-relationships ending in divorce and sick-mind finishing with suicide.
In politics, if an aspiring candidate is denied party ticket, he spits venom against his party. We also come across warring politicians with fuelled discussion on controversial topics facing a shower of stones, rotten vegetable volley and also a shoe throwing protest. We see ‘mob fury’ where peace-loving citizens suddenly become blood thirsty animals and indulging in vandalism and murder. Men of knowledge say, “Anger can cause hypertension, heart, and liver problems.” Yes, anger can destroy you before it destroys anyone else.
External expression of anger can be found on the face — anger flames in cheeks, eyes glaze like fire balls, voice rises to a crescendo and every word the tongue utters looks like a hooded cobra empty its poison on the victim. Anger causes problems at home, at work and with friends. Anger is sudden madness. It carries the guilt of doing wrong to others.
When someone is annoying you or making you angry, you can respond with compassion, that is — forgive and be free. If we forgive and forget, we experience a peace that the world cannot give and the world cannot take away from us. Or if you cannot bear anger then it is better to look for the exit or break away into silent places. Never commit the blunder of reacting immediately. It is said. “Anger and haste hinder good counsel.”
Individuals with anger can neither be happy nor can they make others happy. Anger is like blundering in haste to brood at leisure. Therefore, “burn anger before anger burns you.”
