cannot make me mad. No one can make me mad. Nothing can make me mad.
While anger is often considered a part of the human fight-or-flight response to a perceived threat, whether real or imagined, it can quickly take over my entire being if I do not take conscious control of my situation. Allowing anger to run my life—even for a short time—can cause me to do things I will later regret. I believe this happens when I am angry or stressed beyond any reasonable or normal measure. If I can’t think straight due to stress, then I am not really my normal, calm self, and I am liable to say and do things that I would not do if I were in a calm, relaxed state.
Therefore, I find it best to see the anger coming and either lock the door and deny it entry, or open the front and back doors, allowing it to pass through quickly—hopefully without making much of a mess. After all, if I allow anger to run me for very long, and I do things I will regret, others affected by my anger will not soon forget my outburst. Nor will they likely allow me to use my anger as an excuse or alibi for my behavior. The potentially more serious issue is that I’m not likely to forgive myself and allow my anger to be an acceptable excuse. There is good reason for this.
You cannot make me mad. No one can make me mad. Nothing can make me mad.
Anger is a choice. For anger to control and dominate me, I must allow it. Anger cannot make me do anything unless I let it. People can do things that I don’t like. They can even do things to me that I don’t like. But I still have to choose, consciously or not, to be angry about it, or at the very least I must know that it is I who allow anger to take over my situation.
When I was introduced to the idea that anger was a choice, I rejected it. After all, I was used to saying things like “You made me mad,” which put the blame on the other person, or so I thought.
The truth is that you did something, I didn’t like it, and I got angry!
My choice of words, my saying to you, “You made me mad,” made it seem as though it was your fault that I got mad. I have discovered through trial and error that I can choose not to get mad almost anytime I want.
There are exceptions to every rule, and no matter how hard I try I will still get angry, but that doesn’t mean I should not take responsibility for my anger. It is my emotion—not yours. Since it is my emotion, if I say, “You made me mad,” then you made me mad because I let you, I gave you permission, and I gave you control of my emotions—even if subconsciously, and only for a moment, I handed over control of my being to you. Whomever or whatever it is that I allowed to make me mad, I still gave control of myself over to someone or something outside myself.
Knowing and understanding this about me, I take close control of my anger whenever I catch it rearing its ugly head. I also take control of it because anger is a tool. Used properly, my anger has benefits, but only if I choose to see it that way.
Anger tells me that something is wrong. Sometimes there is something wrong with the way other people are acting or the things they are doing. Other times I may get angry at the state of the world and the way those in control are running things. There are too many things to get mad about to list them all here. But as I have watched my anger, I have noticed that no matter where the anger comes from, no matter the cause, anger is telling me that something is wrong.
The truth is: whatever is wrong is usually wrong with me.
Of course, there are times when I can justifiably and properly carry my anger. I imagine I would be angry if someone robbed me or held me up at gunpoint. But the more likely reasons for my anger stem from everyday occurrences such as someone pulling out in front of me in traffic, a coworker causing problems at work, or someone trying to cut in front of me in line at the supermarket. When one of these things happens, anger can grow quickly, and I am liable to act out unless I can catch the anger and channel its energy into something more productive.
What can be more productive is a solution. If someone pulls out in front of me, the solution can be as simple as allowing them to go about their business while letting go of any anger attached to the situation. Odds are that in an hour or two I will have forgotten about the situation anyway. A potentially more serious situation can come from a coworker who has caused a problem at work. Maybe they have taken credit for my work and I think I need that credit in order to secure a promotion; this is the fear of not getting something I want. Odds are that getting angry will not make matters lean more in my favor. The boss is not likely to believe me, let alone give me credit, if I begin to rant and rave during our meeting that so-and-so “stole” my idea. Such a response sounds rather childish and will not curry any favor with my boss.
If I allow my anger to control my situation, I am apt to do just that—rant and rave. However, if I can get a grip on my anger, I can handle myself more appropriately in the situation. I can keep my cool and my ability to think, and I can address the issue with a calm resolve to correct the misunderstanding.
There is an old saying: “He who strikes the first blow admits he’s lost the argument.” If I strike the first blow in a meeting, whether the blow is physical or verbal, I may lose my opportunity to take corrective action, and may appear rather juvenile in the process. My anger, which has signaled to me that something is wrong, can actually come in handy by giving me the necessary resolve to correct the issue. But I may ruin any future attempt at corrective action if I blow up in front of a roomful of my coworkers. I need to remember that just because my sneaky coworker has claimed responsibility for my great idea, it doesn’t mean that is the last word on the subject.
Things can often be corrected or fixed.
I remember leaving a meeting to go to lunch with a young man I was sponsoring. We were in my car and had gone only a few blocks when we stopped at a red light to wait for it to turn green. While we were sitting still, another car hit us. The accident was by no stretch of the imagination my fault; my car wasn’t even moving when we were hit.
I got out of my car to see if the people in the other car were okay, even though I was certain they were because the accident took place at less than ten miles per hour. When the occupants of the other vehicle and I met for the first time, we began discussing how to handle the situation. They were on their lunch hour and needed to get back to work; we were on our way to lunch and were hungry. Neither car was damaged badly, but both cars would spend some time in the repair shop.
The person driving the other car said she had never done anything like this before and asked me what we should do. I told her that since she was in a hurry, I thought we could simply exchange information—driver’s license, insurance, and phone numbers—and report it to the police at our earliest convenience. She said she would call them when she got back to work. I told her that would be fine, and we went on our way.
When we got back in my car, my sponsee said, “I can’t believe the way you handled that.” When I asked him if I had done something wrong, he replied, “No, I mean you didn’t even get mad. She wrecked your car. Aren’t you upset?”
“Of course I’m upset,” I replied, “but no one was hurt and cars can be fixed.”
“I thought you’d rip that lady a new one,” my sponsee said, then laughed and added, “I would have. I know it.”
“I think she felt bad enough without getting chewed out,” I said. “Still hungry?” Soon we went off to lunch, my sponsee still marveling at my calmness; I was, too, just a little bit. That was the first accident I had been in while in recovery, and I was a little surprised at how calmly I had handled the situation. Then I realized something else.
Until that moment, I had no idea that during the episode my sponsee was eying every move I made. I never did get mad. Sure, I felt anger—based on a fear
