“Do not say, ‘I cannot help having a bad temper.’ Friend, you must help it. Pray to God to help you overcome it at once, for either you must kill it, or it will kill you.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834 – 1892) renowned English Baptist preacher, often referred to as the “Prince of Preachers”, known for his powerful sermons which were widely translated and sold extensively.

It was the concept of “rebirth” that attracted me to Christianity again, after I had been an agnostic for many years. The realization that much of the symbolism in the New Testament is about the possibility for humane personal change, allowing for more meaningful social engagement, is what brought me to Progressive Christianity. (See: If It Didn’t Happen, Why Is It in My Holy Book? – ProgressiveChristianity.org)

In a humorous passage in the New Testament, Nicodemus takes the concept of “rebirth” literally and wonders how it is biologically possible. Jesus tries to reorient Nicodemus toward the figurative and non-literal by saying that one is reborn of water and the Spirit. In John 3:8 Jesus says: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Here Jesus seems to imply that the human will, or what we want, may not be deeply involved in the process of personal change, and seems to equate positive inner change symbolically to the mystery of what causes the wind. This question of how much we can do to become better human beings and how much we must leave to God is an old question. It was even at the heart of one of the Church’s earliest heresies. Pelagius (354 – 415 CE) felt that God’s grace could be an aid to human action for self-change but not the be-all and end-all. Augustine disagreed.

Should a Progressive Christian view “rebirth” as a miraculous process of grace being bestowed from God, or should we view “rebirth” kind of the way Pelagius did and see to what extent we can be involved in our own uplifting? I’m just a pretty well-educated guy who has taken the Christian religion seriously and spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about it, but if we look at something like anger, there are definite things we can do to overcome this often malignant emotion which can cause so much harm to ourselves and others – if Providence can help out a bit, that would be very cool.

One of the great things I learned from Aaron Karmin’s book Anger Management Workbook for Men is that folks who struggle with anger issues often do not realize that anger is a secondary emotion. Anger always follows another inner response. So, if you want to control your anger, your focus should be on what generates that anger in the first place and not the anger itself. Once you find yourself showing anger, you are now in damage control and not prevention. Prevention is possible.

The most common anger-causing response is frustration. Physical pain is also a trigger for anger. Did you ever notice how you often become angry if you, for example, bump your leg or hurt your hand repairing something? Other triggers include feeling physically threatened, being insulted, experiencing unfairness or injustice, and dealing with stress and anxiety.

If we want to be kind, civil, respectful and non-violent, we have to change our orientation toward anger and recognize it is a kind of boogey man and not the source of our problem. Anger is a reflection of a problem. If we allow a situation to get to the level of anger, we often did not diffuse the situation at the source. Basically, we need to problem-solve a prior situation or sometimes just accept matters (however painful that may sound) that we wish to change but which cannot be immediately changed.

70% of the time our anger is caused by underlying responses like frustration, emotional hurt or fear (Worldmetrics, 2024). In 70% of mass shootings in the USA, there is evidence the perpetrator was experiencing intense and unresolved anger, probably due to frustration combined with a sense of being offended or victimized by unfairness or injustice (Columbiapsychiatry, 2022).

Another measure of America’s anger problem can be assessed through road rage. Road rage comes from frustration over the actions of others that discomfit one – especially being cut off (so this would be a mixture of frustration, being offended and experiencing a slight threat to one’s safety). In 2023 92% of American drivers witnessed an instance of road rage. In 2022 one American was killed, on average, every 16 minutes through road rage incidents. 34% of recent respondents to a questionnaire admitted carrying a weapon in their car due to road rage concerns. (Miran, 2024)

Part of the problem is that anger often works and people can often get their way by throwing a tantrum. We live in a society where we believe that anger works. We are often encouraged to get angry if we feel wronged. Anger has become a positive value to a great extent in American culture. We see “righteous” anger all the time in our political lives. If anger works, why should we focus on frustration or other triggers and problem-solve them away? The answer is that we are always being confronted with frustrating situations which can escalate into anger and then possibly escalate into violence.

Anger triggers the part of the brain called the amygdala, which triggers, in turn, a proclivity to aggression or violence (Guy-Evans, 2023). Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out that non-violent action toward peaceful change brought about the best and longest-lasting outcomes. Regardless of how good it feels to get angry at people who are different from us, or believe different things from us, or who cause us discomfort or frustration, if we want to see positive change in ourselves and the world, we must rise to the challenge and stop anger at the point where it is triggered.

Victor Frankl once wrote: “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.” Anger can be a response, but it is often too messy, harmful and unnecessary, and it does not reflect that striving for freedom that Frankl mentioned. As Kurt Vonnegut Jr. once said, “Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I, myself, prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.”

One point of this essay is to assert that in our popular culture approach to this serious social problem, we have not given original causes, such as frustration and a sense of unfairness, the focus they deserve in controlling our anger and we have been focusing on anger itself for too long. We do not have “frustration” management classes. We have “anger” management classes. The orientation should change. We can dig a little deeper.

By the way, there are about 7,000 anger-management counselors in the USA at the present time. That comes out to about 2 specialists per 100,000 people. There are about 200,000 dentists in the USA or about 60 dentists per 100,000 people. If you want to become a certified anger management counselor, you’ll need a BA or BS and can take courses online through The National Anger Management Association. Perhaps we may need more anger/frustration management specialists.

The next time you become angry, check and see whether it was because of frustration or another original source. The more mindful you become in regard to these original causes, the more easily you will be able to deal with them through problem solving or just letting the situation be until proper corrective action can be taken (if it can).

Not throwing a tantrum or making heated demands due to frustration or some perceived unfairness is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of strength, dignity and humanity. If you believe in your own humane development and the need for justice and fairness in our society, please do not neglect how you deal with the triggers of anger. Don’t give up your good fight against something that is wrong in our world, but don’t give in to emotions that are counter-productive to solving problems the right way either.

Socially, we can try a two-pronged approach to solving the anger crisis in the USA. We need to create a public standard, or high expectations against the casual display of anger. We need to set this standard for each other and encourage each other to reflect on the real causes of anger and to try our best to raise our own standards and become more mindful of how we respond to anger triggers. At the same time, we also have to work at not creating situations of offense, injustice or frustration for others.

References:
Columbiapsychiatry. Is there a link between mental health and mass shootings? July 6, 2022, from https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news/mass-shootings-and-mental-illness
Guy-Evans, Olivia. Amygdala hijack: how it works, signs and how to cope. September 18, 2023, from www.simplypsychology.org/amygdala-hijack.html
Miran, Aria. (2024, July 2). 12 US roadrage statistics and facts you should know. Personal Injury Blog. https://www.rmdlaw.com/personal-injury-blog/road-rage-statistics-facts/
Worldmetrics. Anger Statistics: Impact on health, productivity and emotional regulation. July 23, 2024, from: https://worldmetrics.org/anger-statistics/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the Author

Daniel Gauss is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and Columbia University. He has been published on numerous platforms dealing with art and culture and has been working in the field of education for over 20 years. He currently teaches in Shenzhen, China.