The World Is Short-Tempered: Let’s Correct It at My Home First!

Nowadays, people become more and more impatient, being unable to control their anger. A driver, who was driving on a highway, got angry as another driver changed the lane, and stopped his car suddenly; the car behind him was able to stop before he hit the car, but five cars behind him collided with each other and as a result, one innocent driver died, and four people were seriously injured. Two people died as a man got angry because of the noise between the floors of his apartment and set fire downstairs. A son murdered his parents who were disciplining him. An office worker murdered his colleague whom he argued with. Such incidents caused by the inability to control their anger become more and more frequent.

If people cannot suppress their anger and it becomes worse, it can cause the anger control disorder. A few months ago, a man shot thirteen people dead in Washington, U.S. He had anger control disorder. Like this, those who expose their anger excessively and recklessly destroy other people’s lives as well as their own.

“Anybody can become angry—that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way—that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.”

As Aristotle said, becoming angry is not always bad. Sometimes, people get angry at injustice. This kind of anger is called righteous indignation and it doesn’t cause big problems. The problem is that most of times the anger that people have is not the righteous indignation but simple anger that causes quarrels and arguments.

The Ultimate Victim Is the One Who Gets Angry

The biggest victim caused by anger is the one who gets angry. Once one gets angry, stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol are secreted. When these hormones are secreted, the blood pressure goes up, the pulse becomes rapid, and the inside wall of the blood vessel in the heart gets damaged. If these things repeat, diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries, and digestive disorders can occur, and there is a higher possibility of suffering Alzheimer’s disease as the brain cells are damaged. Also, such hormones suppress the function of natural killer [NK] cells which kill cancer cells, and as a result, the resistance against cancer becomes weak.

An experiment conducted in England reports: “Condensed molecules from breath exhaled from verbal expressions of anger, hatred, and jealousy, contain toxins. Accumulated over one hour, these toxins are enough to kill 80 guinea pigs.” Then, how much more would they damage the health of the person who makes those toxins? When people are angry, aging speeds up. An American professor said that the death rate of people, whose anger rate was high in a survey that was conducted when he was in university, was four to seven times higher when they reached their 50s.

When you express your anger, you may feel better temporarily, but your body and mind get ruined. Since people don’t sense this, they mistakenly think that it is better to express their anger. One group was told to express their anger by hitting a punching bag, and the other group was told to sit for a few minutes and calm down. The result of this experiment was that those who hit the punching bag tended to treat others aggressively. If you don’t control your anger but express it every time, you will be exhausted. Then, how should you control your anger?

How to Handle Anger

1. ‘That’s okay. I understand.’

Psychologist Albert Ellis says anger is related to the expectation, ‘Someone has to do a certain thing.’ For example, housewives who take care of their kids all day think that their husbands should spend time with their kids after work, but husbands think that they should have rest since they worked all day. Parents think that their children must have a certain grade from school, and children think that their parents must do whatever they want. If one has such an expectation, he becomes angry when things don’t go the way he expected. Others’ way of thinking cannot be the same as yours. Actually, it is more likely that things don’t go the way you expect. Instead of expecting someone to do something, have a broad mind and think, ‘That’s okay. I understand.’

2. Time heals all wounds

Dale Carnegie, who is well-known for a human relations approach, received a negative letter about his book from a reader. Carnegie got angry and wrote a reply right away. “I’m very suspicious of your intelligence. I don’t think you will even understand this letter correctly.” Then he threw it to his drawer and read it a few days later. Then he wrote again, “Thank you for your advice about my book. I will try harder to write a better book.”

Anger hormones reach the summit in about fifteen seconds and then fade away. Even if you get angry, don’t yell right away or attack others but try to let time pass while taking a deep breath in and out. When you find peace in mind, you can make a rational judgment.

3. Blow off steam on the same day

In May, 2005, a husband and wife in England, who was 105 and 100 years old, were recorded in the Guinness Book for their longest marriage of 80 years. The reporter asked them how they were able to continue their happy marriage life, then the wife said, “We, too, often argued with each other, but we never went to bed angry. We always went to sleep, holding our hands.”

The Bible says, “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry” (Eph 4:26). Jewish parents always make their children feel better before they go to bed even though they scolded them very harshly that day. It is better to blow off steam that day, and it is enough to get angry once per incident. If you keep bringing up the moment you got angry or keep it in your mind for a long time, it harms your health and the situation gets worse.

4. Change your anger into energy that produces a good outcome

Writer Thomas Carlyle showed his friend a script which took him years to complete. While his friend was out for a minute, his maid thought it was trash and threw it in the fireplace. Thomas, filled with anger, fell into despair. But then he happened to see a construction worker piling up bricks, and he made up his mind like this, ‘Alright. I will write it again little by little just as he is piling up the bricks one by one.’ As a result, he was able to write a better script than the first one. Like that, a masterpiece was made, and it is The French Revolution: A History.

Whenever you are angry, take it as an opportunity to exercise or to read or to try harder or to improve your ability, and you will be able to gain a productive result. On the other hand, when you get angry, if you eat a lot, buy something on impulse, break things, beat up someone, or verbally abuse somebody, the result will be devastating.

5. Let’s become an empty boat

“If a man crosses a river and an empty boat collides with his own skiff, he will not be angry. But if he sees a man in the boat, he will shout at him to steer clear. If the shout is not heard, he will shout again, and yet again, and start cursing—all because there is somebody in that boat.”

This is Chuang Tzu’s poem. Like this, if you regard others as empty boats, you will not get angry, and if you make yourself like empty boats, you will be able to cover others’ errors as well.

6. When you get angry, compose yourself and ask yourself the following questions

• Am I confident not to regret after losing my temper?
• Is there no other way than getting angry?
• What benefits will I get if I get angry?
• Is it something I should get angry about from others’ point of view?
• Am I getting angry at the right person?
• Do I really want my brain cells to be damaged?
• Will I not harm my family by getting angry?
• Am I not interpreting the situation in a way to get angry?

7. How to deal with an angry person

It is important not to get angry, and so is dealing with an angry person. When someone gets angry, if you too get angry or rub his fur the wrong way, it will only become an argument. There is always a reason that someone is angry, so he needs someone to listen to him. If you keep listening to him and agreeing with him, he can suppress his anger and even feel grateful for listening to him. Even if he misunderstands something or is angry for an unreasonable reason, it is better to listen to him and accept what he says until he calms down. When he has calmed down, go ahead and tell him what you think.

Teaching Patience Is Also Home Education

It is not only adults who have the problem of losing their temper for trivial matters. A student got angry with the teacher who woke him up in class; a child verbally abused his mom who tried to stop his fight with someone; and a kindergarten child kicked his grandfather who gave him less pocket money than his older sister. In February, 2013, the Korean Federation of Teachers’ Associations surveyed 594 teachers from elementary, middle, and high schools throughout Korea. The result of the survey said that four out of ten teachers thought about quitting their jobs because of the students who easily lose their temper.

The common opinion of the experts about this matter is that home education is important. When children whine or get angry in their early childhood, parents should sympathize with them and then explain to them what is wrong and what is right so that they can learn how to control their anger. If they do everything as they please in their childhood, they can’t learn patience. You must teach them what is permitted and what is not so that they will not think that they can have anything they want if they keep whining. In doing so, parents shouldn’t suppress them with inappropriate words. It’s also important to let their children read books and newspapers instead of using smartphones, and to have a casual conversation with them for at least ten minutes every day so that they can open up and talk freely during the conversation.

If parents get angry habitually, children are to defy their parents. It is reported that the more corporal punishment the parents give, the more misdeeds children commit in their adolescent period. Parents’ yelling can hurt teenagers’ feelings as much as corporal punishment does. So, in order to raise children to be mature mentally, the parents must show an example of controlling their anger wisely.

Since family members are close to each other, it is easier to express their anger or vent their anger on each other. As the expectation for the family members is high, when the expectation fails to be met, disappointment is great, and people tend to think that their family members are easy to deal with. However, the hurt feelings from the family members are deeper and last longer. Try not to get angry at the family members whom you should regard as more precious and grateful than anyone else. This month, why don’t you challenge to make your family a family that doesn’t get angry?