How does anger affects us?

Lot's of people struggle with anger either themselves or have to deal with others who do.

This affects their work, relationships and general day to day mood.

We want to give some actionable advice to remove unnecessary rage from your lives.

You’ve had a long arduous journey to the airport. At many points you thought you would never arrive. Thanks to ample train delays, ambiguous foreign signage and your pulsating hangover.

You finally arrive at the haven of the airport ready to check-in. You've been dreaming of an overpriced, over-salty and dry bit of airport munch, the dryer the better. It will give you more of a break from the facemask.

After a considerable queue, you get to the check-in desk to be told that your ticket exist. It transpires that because you missed the outbound leg of the flight your ticket is now invalid. If you want to get home today your only option is to book another ticket. ‘Don’t worry though sir, it's only £400’ . Ironically, this the total amount you budgeted for spending money while away.

What do you feel?

Anger, confusion, blame, and regret? Or do you get off on the fact that happened to someone else and not you… sicko!

Well, this exact situation happened to me last week (at the time of writing). I was on my way back from Snowbombing festival and ready for bed.

I wrote the above in a tone to show how one could choose to feel about the experience. Actually I went through the experience almost entirely in a state of equanimity.

I even asked myself, when I was safely on the plane, whether I was dead inside. Incapable of rage or feeling anything at all.

Personally, I used to be very quick to anger or outrage, especially when I was hungry. Many of my closest friends will testify, which made me reflect on how I've improved my mindset. If in fact I haveied and I am not a character in Flight Simulator v3000042.

So how did this play out…

When I was initially hit with the news that my flight was invalid my heart of course sunk, I then did all I could to reason with the guy behind the desk:

‘Really…..? Please check again?’

‘There must be another way’

‘Is there anyone else I can speak to?’

‘There is absolutely nothing you can do for me?’

'No "Good Guy discount" you can offer?'

‘There’s no sneaky cheap flight that can offered to me based on how bloody polite I have just been?’

In doing so I could comfortably say I did everything in my control in the moment. Everything else is was of my control.

So why would I rationally concern myself with that which is outside of my control?

I could have been rude or shouted at the airport guy. I could've stayed angry at the injustice fantasising about an alternative reality where I was spared the extra expense.

Those almost default human reactions wouldn’t have made me feel any better though. They would have just been a reflection of my emotions happening to me, my lizard brain taking me for a stroll, rather than me being in control.

As we have said before in our blogs, nothing is good or bad until we think it so.

How we feel about something is a choice, an option in the moment.

Is it good for you to choose anger?

I’d argue it doesn’t benefit you, and it especially doesn’t benefit others.

When returning to baseline, any anger reflected outward will come with anxiety and regret. You'll feel you’ve let yourself down and damaged the image others have of you.

Listening to Derren Brown’s book ‘Happy’ a quote I fell in love with was ‘Anger is just proof of how unrealistic your expectations were’

If you expect perfection and a smooth ride you are setting yourself up for failure. By lowering your expectations of the world, you can only be pleasantly surprised.

Was it unrealistic for me to expect there to be no hiccups? A journey from Austria to Madrid involving 1000s of complex logistical components. All needing to work in conjunction to allow me to transport myself across the continent.

I think it probably was.

Out of 100s of times I have used public transport, this is the first time this has happened. What amazing luck that I got away with it until now!

To put it into perspective watch this video to see how many people AJ Jacobs was able to thank for his simple cup of coffee.

It could have been much worse, what if I couldn’t get home at all… fuck that would have been bad.

So as I said earlier, I was, but for a few heart palpitations, unaffected by the above.

This isn’t because £400 is peanuts to me (far from it). Or because I am soulless (I hope) or because I am so laid back I simply just let life happen to me and don’t give a shit.

It's because I was able to think rationally in the moment. This allowed me to tap into the type of person I desire and choose to be and then act and feel accordingly.

Which actually made me feel good about the situation afterwards. I was pleased with my own self-development.

It's something I have been working on for many years. How do you act rationally when you are in a state of irrationality? It is probably as paradoxical as it sounds.

For those who are prone to anger, inward and directed at yourself is just the same. I’d encourage you to start asking yourselves ‘how does it serve me? Is it helpful for me and my relationships?’

If it isn’t serving you, we are in agreement.

Apart from sports and competitive environments it's more harmful than it is helpful.

How to deal with anger

When you next feel the blanket of red rage wash over you start using some of these tactics and let us know how you get on

• Recognise you have the choice how you feel about something
• Ask yourself if your anger is helpful to you
• Lower your expectations and remember we live in an imperfect world, there’s beauty in that
• Explore in your mind how much worse it could have been
• Is there any upside or silver lining you can extract
• Breath
• Don’t take yourself so seriously
• Walk away
• Smile

In my opinion anger is like drinking poison and hoping someone else dies. Interested to hear other people's opinion though!

I will close on a lyric from the Bristol band Idles 

‘Not a single thing has ever been mended

By you standin' there and saying you're offended

Go ahead, tell them what I've intended

I'll say what I mean, do what I love, and fucking send it’

What is memento mori?

Memento mori is a popular ancient phrase used to remind us of our own mortality, literally meaning remember you must die. 

Whether you like it or not and regardless of whether you choose to think about it or live in denial, dying is an inevitable part of life.

So how can we use our acceptance of this inevitability to our advantage to make the best out of the finite time we have? 

When was the last time you contemplated your own death? Or the death of a loved one?

As we discussed in a previous blog post a stoic exercise called negative visualisation prompts us to essentially imagine the worst so that we can appreciate the things we have now. For me this often involves thinking very briefly about a loved one passing then shifting my train of thought to one of gratitude and appreciation for said person.

Epictetus advised his students that when they kiss their children goodnight, they should be reminded that their child could die tomorrow. While it is natural to recoil at this thought, it may also be a measure of your reluctance to accept the inevitability of death. This exercise is both uncomfortable and harmless and will bring a great sense of gratitude.

After all, how much more would you appreciate the loved ones in your life if you recognised each time you see them that this could be the last? 

Remember, you are dying all the time and so is everyone you love. Every minute you live is a minute closer to death.

Naturally, most people actively avoid such thoughts. The main way you think about death is in the sense that you are proactively avoiding it.

In not actively thinking about death and accepting its part in life there is a chance you are robbing yourself of your ability to get the most out of the present day. If your mindset is that it may never happen to you or you will live eternally in the afterlife or it's so far away that you take today for granted as just another day, nothing special.

What if it really was your last day here and you knew it? I’m sure you would turn up very differently if you were connected to each day as finite as it could be.

What did the stoics think about death?

For the stoics this philosophical exercise was a regular part of daily life.

Unlike most modern societies now where death happens in private, tucked away in hospitals or quietly at home, in the past death would have been more front of mind where the old and fragile weren’t tucked away in sterile buildings but they were out and about until the end.

In ancient times it's highly likely that without this exercise, daily life would offer more reminders of the fragility of life. Health and safety didn’t exist.

For example, common remedies for epilepsy include eating pickled camel brain, smelling the afterbirth of a female donkey or drinking water from the skull of a dead man.

“Philosophy is a preparation for death” - Socrates

Memento mori has so many great benefits. By thinking about it regularly it allows us to accept it and removes some of the stigma and fear surrounding death. It allows us to be more comfortable so we can discuss death with our loved ones, bringing us closer to them.

Fundamentally, being connected to your own mortality means it is easier to feel a profound sense of gratitude for each day.

What does memento vivere mean?

Memento vivere means remember to live.

So, I would encourage you to keep two things in mind: memento mori and memento vivere. 

Life truly is too short if you let it pass you by so make the most of it.

 “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realise that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.” - Seneca 

One powerful question to close, one that will prompt an awful lot of further introspection comes from the book One Last Talk: Why Your Truth Matters and How to Speak It by Phillip McKernan.

If you were about to leave this planet, what would you say, and who would you say it to?

Memento mori.