Anger, Frustration, and Resentment
Anger, resentment, and frustration are all the same thing. I’m going to use the word anger here, but feel free to replace it with frustration or resentment if that’s what you usually call it.
Anger is your body’s emergency self-help solution. When you’re in real trouble, anger is there to help you protect yourself. Anger is a survival mechanism, designed to save us from the worst situations we ever experience.
Anger only arises when you feel powerless. We get angry a lot because we feel powerless a lot.
When you feel angry, see if you can figure out what’s driving your perception of powerlessness. Next, figure out how much truth there is to that perception. Are you really powerless, or do you just feel that way?
There are only two ways to feel less angry: acceptance, and power. If you are truly facing something that is out of your control, your only choice is to accept what is happening. As you accept the reality you are facing, your anger will fade.
On the other hand, if your perceived powerlessness is an illusion, your anger will fade once you claim your power by taking action.
In reality, every situation is a combination of these two: there is always something you can do, and there are also things that are not within your control. The solution to anger is action and acceptance at the same time.
The reason we resort to anger is that we’re too afraid to take action, and we’re also too afraid to accept what we can’t control. This brings us to a deeper problem: we get angry because we don’t have enough courage to deal with the problems we face.
We reach for anger when we run out of courage. Anger and courage are both responses to fear, and anger will always fill in when courage is lacking.
If you find yourself bound up in anger, frustration, and resentment, courage is the solution. You can develop more courage by acting courageously in small situations, like telling the truth when it would be easier to lie, or not letting your instincts run the show when you know there’s a better way.
These are the three ways to get less anger in your life: more courage, more acceptance, and more action. As long as you allow fear to control you, refuse to accept what you cannot change, and fail to take action when appropriate, you will continue to be bound by anger.
