“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” —Epictetus
What happens to you DOES matter! It most certainly matters. I would never ask someone to deny or minimize the traumas in their lives. What happens in our lives plays a large role in who we are.
But I do agree with Epictetus that HOW we react to the events and traumas of our lives probably has a bigger impact than the event itself. How we react is as unique as we are from each other.
After sadness, anger was my predominant emotional reaction during Harvey’s time with Alzheimer’s disease. I was angry that this had happened to our family, and angry that I was going to have to take responsibility for all aspects of our life. I was never angry at Harvey for having the disease, but I admit that I did become angry with him for some of the things he did.
As children, we are socialized to believe that anger is unacceptable—especially girl children, and maybe even more especially in the South. But anger is a legitimate human emotion like all emotions. It’s how we express that emotion that gets us in trouble.
Lashing out at others, physically or verbally, because it injures another person, can cause great harm.
Anger that simmers, and then finally explodes, is especially dangerous because it is so unexpected and can be overwhelming to person on the receiving end.
Like an insect bite that itches, when you constantly scratch at the irritation, things only get worse. The more it itches and festers, the more you scratch at it, and then it itches even more, the itch-scratch cycle, until you draw blood.
Did you know that mosquito bites don’t actually result in a poisonous substance being injected into your body that directly causes the itching? It’s actually your own body’s immune response to the injected saliva of the mosquito. THOSE chemicals cause the itching sensation.
The irritant that sparks our anger is like the mosquito bite. How we react to that event is what’s important. Do we scratch that itch, inflaming it further, and draw blood, or do we not scratch at the itch of anger, but acknowledge it, and let the moment subside?
Anger CAN BE productive. I’m thinking of righteous indignation over injustices in the world. On one hand, the anger we feel when we see these injustices may result in our unproductively shouting, complaining, or even physically reacting. On the other hand, if we channel that angry energy into creating solutions to the problems we see, the world has a chance of becoming better.
There was a period of time when Harvey frustrated me almost daily by rummaging through the file cabinet, creating havoc with important papers. My initial reaction was to become mad, and I would angrily ask, “Why did you go through the file cabinet again? What were you looking for? Can’t you see I have to organize this all over again?” It did absolutely no good to express my anger with him, to him. When I held my tongue, and let the anger subside, I could then brainstorm ways to eliminate this particular behavior. (I bought a replacement for the lost key to the file cabinet.)
So yes, anger at certain situations is an understandable, valid emotion. How we react to them is one measure by which we know that we are well, and that we are living a balanced life.