Make It a Short Spark

“Anger is almost always an emotion for people who wish to control others while simultaneously failing to control themselves.”

There has to be a word for that phenomenon you feel when someone else puts into words a thought you’ve frequently had in the past, but never have been able to articulate.  This thought, admirably expressed by Dan Pearce of “Single Dad Laughing”, has been floating around in my head for a few weeks now.  Before I found this quote, it was a formless thought, one that stays beyond the part of your consciousness that speaks in words.  Now, however, I have the tools to really examine it.

I’ve believed for a long time that anger doesn’t do very much good in my day-to-day life.  Most of that comes out of a dislike of confrontation: I just really don’t like to fight with people.  (Maybe my older sister’s at fault—she always used to win the arguments we got into as kids, and so I just stopped trying.)  But I have noticed, especially since getting a service job, that you really do catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. 

For example, in a restaurant the hostess usually takes a lot of flak from the servers.  Keeping servers at the right number of tables is a delicate business—too few and the servers are worried about not making enough money, too many and they’re overwhelmed.  Frequently, when the latter happens, the hostess is blasted by a stressed, irritated server who has sixteen things to do in the next four minutes.  “But you don’t do that,” one of my hostess friends told me recently.  “You’ll just come over quietly and say, please don’t sit me again for a little while.  Not DON’T YOU GIVE ME ANY MORE TABLES FOR A DAMN MINUTE!”

There’s a noticeable difference in the two requests above.  The second just naturally puts your back up, doesn’t it?  Anger is a negative emotion, and when we don’t control it, it generates more negativity.  It does come out of a need to control, a reaction to how much the world is not in our control.  Really, it’s a very natural reaction.  It can be frustrating and frightening to realize how much we are helpless to influence what’s going on around us.  But the fact is that getting angry about it doesn’t really help.

Small disclaimer: I do get angry myself.  I’ve written on this blog not that long ago about how I do sometimes get angry.  In that case, there was no harm done except a jerk realizing a small part of his disrespect for others.  When properly channeled, anger can be a source of positive change, especially if you use it to stand up for yourself.  But it’s a stick of dynamite with the fuse sparking, and we need to be careful where we aim the explosion, so that no innocent bystanders are hurt by the blast.