Anger and hate hurt you.
But these are basic emotions.
The Bible says hate goes back to the second pair of humans.
Biology says anger predates humans entirely. Our ape ancestors relied on rage-fueled adrenaline to battle rivals and survive.
Hate and anger are part of being human.
Or are they?
We’re not apes. Success doesn’t mean smashing someone’s head with a bone.
The story of Cain and Abel was a warning to be better.
We can use our rational mind, and desire to live a happy life, to overcome anger and hatred.
Anger makes us experience pain twice
Anger happens when we feel like we’ve been harmed unjustly.
The person who harmed us may or may not have acted maliciously. Or perhaps it wasn’t a person at all. It was just fate/the universe, or something we did to ourselves.
Regardless of blame, one thing is always true:
Anger feels unpleasant.
You’re worked up. Irritated. Not thinking straight. Obsessively replaying whatever bad thing happened.
You certainly aren’t happy.
But the person you’re angry at doesn’t feel any of that.
They may not even know you’re angry. Or that you exist at all.
You’re hurting yourself, while doing nothing to the person you’re angry at.
Perhaps you may take out your anger on them. But then you turn your relationship toxic, which is much worse.
If you touch a hot stove, it hurts, and you won’t do it again.
But people keep getting angry.
Why?
One possibility is they have no choice. It’s an involuntary reaction.
But I don’t think that’s the case.
There’s something else drawing angry people to anger.
Maybe they’re addicted to the adrenaline rush. Maybe it’s something else.
Perhaps anger is a habit.
Every time you get angry, you make it more likely that you’ll get angry in the future.
“Anger is a killing thing: it kills the man who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before – it takes something from him.”
Louis L’amour
Hate is a state of constant pain
If the habit of anger gets strong enough, it turns into hate.
Hate is when someone constantly infuriates you simply by existing.
They live in your head rent-free.
Like with anger, your hate doesn’t harm the target one bit. It only hurts you.
“Hate at any point is a cancer that gnaws away at the very vital center of your life and your existence. It is like eroding acid that eats away the best and the objective center of your life. So Jesus says love, because hate destroys the hater as well as the hated.”
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
It doesn’t matter how “worthy” of hate someone is. How awful they are. What terrible things they’ve done.
Hating them still just hurts yourself.
When hate becomes all-consuming
If you spend enough time building the habit of hate, your hatred can replace your identity as a person.
In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey discusses people who lead an enemy-centered life. Often people who go through a bitter divorce, or were screwed over in a business deal.
This also happens among people who spend too much time obsessing over politics, to the point that their entire personality becomes hating a particular politician or party.
They spend every waking moment in paranoia and fear, incapable of living a normal life. Every minor irrelevancy is the end of the world. They alienate friends and family – not just the ones on the “enemy” side, but those on their own side who don’t hate hard enough.
“All evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.”
– Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Meanwhile the politician/party they hate so much is completely unaware of them.
How do you stop anger and hatred?
Minimize exposure to your triggers
How do you make the choice to not get angry or hate?
First, minimize exposure to your triggers.
I’m a recovered addict of arguing on the internet about politics. Now I avoid arguments about politics so I have nothing to get angry about.
If there’s someone who pushes your buttons, block them on Facebook, and don’t invite them to parties.
Pay much less attention to politics in general. Or any other topic that makes you angry.
Take a moment to remind yourself anger is a choice
It’s a cliche to count to ten when you feel angry, but it works.
Use that ten seconds to say to yourself, “If I choose to get angry now, I’ll only hurt myself.” Emphasize the “I choose” part of that sentence.
Remember it’s you choosing to get angry, not the other person making you angry.
Say it out loud, if you’re alone and people won’t think you’re crazy. Or write it down in a text document or notebook.
If you get angry at someone you care about, remember why you care about them. Replace the angry thoughts with pleasant ones.
Break the anger habit
Get out of the habit of expressing your anger.
Stop yourself from complaining.
Out loud, on social media, and even in your internal monologue.
Every time you complain, you build the habit of getting angry.
Every time you stop yourself from complaining, you build the habit of letting your anger go.
That means no ranting about your jerk boss, or what that awful politician did, or people who won’t wear masks.
Not even forwarding a meme about how much 2020 sucks.
Conclusion: Choose happiness over hatred
If you frequently get angry, the suggestion that anger’s a choice may, well, make you angry.
Ultimately, you have control over your own life. Not just your actions, but your thoughts.
It is up to you to take ownership of your own happiness. Nobody else will do it for you.
Others may wrong you. You may feel their actions justify your anger and hatred.
But do you really want to give them control over your mind and soul?
It’s your decision.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
– Victor Frankl
Amazing post! I love that you said “anger makes us experience pain twice.” We get so caught up that we don’t realize the only one we are hurting with our anger is ourselves.Thank you for sharing this!