How to Stop Being so Angry. It’s Hurting Your Success.

Control Your Anger. Don’t Let it Control You.

“There are two things a person should never be angry at,” Plato once said, “what they can help, and what they cannot.” And yet we tend to get angry with both. It’s difficult to go through an entire day without finding something that brings up some well-deserved, self-righteous ire.

As we’ve all seen, anger can be a valuable tool in confronting injustice. But as the great Ursula K. Le Guin describes it, anger is “a weapon — a tool useful only in combat and self-defense.”

Anger is a tool. But like any tool, it’s only effective when used in the right manner. When it becomes our default response, it clouds our judgment and limits our ability to make sound decisions. Le Guin further wrote,

“Anger continued on past its usefulness becomes unjust, then dangerous. Nursed for its own sake, valued as an end in itself, it loses its goal. It fuels not positive activism but regression, obsession, vengeance, self-righteousness. Corrosive, it feeds off itself, destroying its host in the process.”

Anger makes us hotheaded. We’re less likely to think clearly and more willing to make snap judgments. When anger is driving our actions, we‘re less concerned about the long-term consequences of our choices. We want action now, and to hell with what it means tomorrow.

In an American Medical Association article on “vending machine rage,” it detailed injuries of angry men (yeah, it always seems to be men…) kicking or rocking machines that took their money without dispensing their drink. Occasionally these situations turned fatal as the machines fell onto the men and crushed them.

The idea of dying, crushed beneath a vending machine, over a $2 injustice is a sobering prospect. And risking death or injury to show a vending machine who’s boss just doesn’t seem like a great strategy.

But anger doesn’t come from rational thought. Instead, it’s caused by what Martha Nussbaum refers to as “status-injury.” As Nussbaum wrote in Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, and Justice,

“Anger is not always, but very often, about status-injury. And status-injury has a narcissistic flavor: rather than focusing on the wrongfulness of the act as such, a focus that might lead to concern for wrongful acts of the same type more generally, the status-angry person focuses obsessively on herself and her standing vis-à-vis others.”

This status-injury often comes with a loss of control. Being in control, or even the illusion of control, brings a sense of security. When we lose that security, anger is our way of trying to reclaim it. Nussbaum would go on to write,

“We are prone to anger to the extent that we feel insecure or lacking control with respect to the aspect of our goals that has been assailed — and to the extent that we expect or desire control. Anger aims at restoring lost control and often achieves at least an illusion of it. To the extent that a culture encourages people to feel vulnerable to affront and down-ranking in a wide variety of situations, it encourages the roots of status-focused anger.”

It would seem the solution is then to value what we can control — and not value what we can’t.

Focus on Self-Esteem over Pride

“To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are,” wrote Bruce Lee in an essay called The Passionate State of Mind. “Yet it is remarkable that the very people who are most self-dissatisfied and crave most for a new identity have the least self-awareness.”

We become angry to protect our sense of control and maintain our sense of status. But this status only matters when we let others determine its value. Once we stop using external factors to dictate our worth, status-injuries lose their effect.

Bruce Lee would describe this mindset as one of pride — a sense of self-worth that’s derived from external rather than internal factors. When we lack self-awareness, we look to others to tell us who we are. We more readily give up control. And we open ourselves up to status-driven anger.

The alternative then is an intrinsic source of motivation — not pride but self-esteem. As Lee wrote,

“Pride is a sense of worth derived from something that is not part of us, while self-esteem derives from the potentialities and achievements of self.”

When we recognize our own value, we’re less likely to become angry over a perceived injustice. If we cultivate a strong sense of self-esteem, it’s less likely that the actions of a vending machine will put us over the edge.

In today’s world, there are few things that we control. And many, many more that we cannot. Doesn’t it make sense to measure our worth through the few that we can control, instead of the many that we cannot?

Venting Anger Doesn’t Help. Constructive Action Helps.

In the cult classic Office Space, a film that perfectly captures too many of our workplace environments, three disgruntled coworkers steal an office printer and mercilessly destroy it in the middle of a field. It connects with many people who have to deal with the frustration of shoddy office equipment every day. It also reinforces the perception that letting out our anger is a useful method of moving past it.

Yet more than 40 years of studies have shown that this isn’t true. The more that we express anger, either directly toward another person or indirectly towards a stress ball or unfortunate printer, the more likely we are to continue being angry. In studies ranging from having groups of people pound nails after someone insulted them, to a review of violent videogames, letting out their anger led to increased aggression.

Anger doesn’t fix the problem. It just diverts your attention from the real problem to the past, which you can’t change.

Instead of just expressing anger, focus on channeling it towards constructive action to address the source. If you become angry over the loss of control, take action that lets you take back some control over the situation.

If your boss keeps downplaying your worth in meetings, kicking a hole in the wall isn’t going to help. You still have the same problem, except now you need to patch the drywall as well. But calmly addressing his or her behavior and standing up for yourself can go a long way towards resolving it.

Choose the Hard Choices

“In every difficult moment ask yourself, ‘What is a hard choice and what is an easy choice?’ and you will know instantly what is right,” suggested the poet and weight-lifting champion Jerzy Gregorek, in recognizing that it’s these hard choices that lead to a fulfilling life.

Anger is often the easy choice. It gives us an illusion of control. It lets us avoid taking responsibility.

So one of the first steps in counteracting our internal rationalizations is to recognize when we’re stretching to rationalize the easy choice. Are you looking to prop up those extrinsic measures? Are you looking to avoid taking constructive action to fix the situation?

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely suggests a similar mentality when evaluating future decisions. In a podcast discussion with Shane Parrish of The Knowledge Project, he suggests three strategies to consider when faced with difficult decisions:

• Consider yourself as an external advisor instead of the person making the decision. We’re usually able to solve other peoples’ problems because we see them from a more rational viewpoint.
• Consider that you’re making this decision as a long-term rule instead of one-time instance. When we associate today’s decision with long-term behaviors/habits/impacts/trends, we’re more likely to act responsibly.
• Consider whether your decision would be consistent if it was a major event or a minor one. We tend to make exceptions for minor events yet it’s these minor events that add up to define our long-term standards.

Anger is a choice. No one can make us angry. It’s something that we choose to do, whether we realize it or not.

And because it’s a choice, it means that we have control. We can all choose how we define our own value. And we can all choose to take action that will help resolve the source of our anger.

And at the very least, leave that vending machine alone. It’s just not worth it.