As I have grown older, I have worked hard to resist the temptation to get angry and shout at people, especially those who have no way of answering back. I have become more patient – even if someone else makes a mistake (which I then do point out). I have realised that getting angry doesn’t really get you anything. It is just a demonstration of power and it ends up creating resentment in the other person. In most cases, if anger has to be directed, it has to be towards oneself because we are the originator of more mistakes than others.
As I think about it, I perhaps realised the futility of anger during my early years as I saw my father get angry at other people. Of course, he calmed down very quickly and moved on, but in those few minutes, I saw the helplessness in the eyes of the other person. I myself was at the receiving end many times. I realised that the same thing which is said by shouting can also be said calmly to the other person and the impact is likely to be much greater. After a point, the angry words are just discounted by the person at the receiving end.
In the past few years, there have been a few occasions when I have gotten angry with my teenage son, Abhishek. On every such occasion, as I reflected after the event, I realised that my reaction was disproportionate to what had happened. All Abhishek would do is cry – he could not answer me back or show his anger. And it was through these (and much talking to my wife, Bhavana) that I realised that self-control is a very important trait to learn. In almost all cases, I was upset at something else and I found Abhishek to be the victim whom I could unleash my inner frustrations on. Whenever it happened, Bhavana ensured that I saw my mistake and apologised to Abhishek to ensure that the damage caused did not create an unbridgeable chasm over time.
It is not that I keep my anger bottled up inside me. I use my notebook to write down my feelings and get closure. I find that writing out my thoughts helps clear the mind; it is almost like talking to someone else. The writing forces me to reflect and that helps dissipate the momentary anger.
Anger has little place in daily life. We cannot stop becoming angry when we see something wrong happen. What we can control is our reaction. More often than not, we will find that the root cause is perhaps of our own making – unreal expectations, imprecise instructions, or simply, fury at our own follies.
