Transcription
Should we talk about anger now? You're getting me angry.
If we want to pursue life rather than get hung up on existence, one of the first things to consider is anger. Where does that fit in your life? Why does anger even exist? And how do you handle it?
Some mother asked me once, "Is it okay to spank your children?" I said, "Sure, only one condition. Put together a list of behaviors or activities for which I will spank my child. Make that list and hang it on your refrigerator. If you get angry at your kid and you want to spank him, check the list. If it's not on the list, you can't spank him."
So they thought that's a great idea. Then they sat there for a few minutes, and most of them said, "What do you put on the list?" Can't think of anything to put on the list when you're not angry. Nothing sounds so bad that you have to spank the kid.
So how do you handle anger? Make a list. These are the things that I will become angry over. Put together a list. You'd be surprised how short that list is, because in almost all instances, anger is not necessary. It's not the right response. It's not a good response. And yet, it's so common. You get angry about five times a day, that's if you're a nice guy. If you're not such a nice guy, it's ten times a day. Everything gets you angry.
Anger is a weakness, but for some reason, it's a weakness that we're not ashamed of. You ever notice that? It's like this guy says, "I hit my wife." "Yeah, I hit her. I mean, she got me angry." That's it. That's your defense. In fact, this guy says, "I told her to stop because she's going to get me angry. She didn't stop, so I got angry, so I hit her." Not only does he justify his anger, he even justifies what he did out of anger.
Well, of course, I hit her. Got me angry. Nobody ever says, "Yeah, I stole his watch. He was flashing it around. Got me jealous, so I took the watch." Nobody would say that, because being jealous is obviously an embarrassing thing. But being angry is not. Who made anger okay? It's not. It's not any more okay than jealousy, than lying, than deceit, greed. Why is anger any better than that? You lost control. What are you proud about?
So the first thing we have to do is recognize that anger is not a sign of strength. It's a weakness. Secondly, even if you get angry, that justifies anything you do? "Well, when once I'm angry, you know, you never know what I'm gonna do." Oh, really? That makes me feel really good. Like I hire a babysitter for my kid and I say, "Do you have a temper?" And he said, "No, but when I do get angry, I can't guarantee what..." "I'm sorry, you're not babysitting my kid, because my kids get you angry. So what do you mean you can't guarantee your behavior once you're angry?" Why does that feel so justified? It's not.
So how do you, how do you locate anger and put it in its proper place? You didn't create yourself, and you didn't create the world. Is that a safe assumption? Anybody disagree with that? You didn't create the world. You didn't create yourself. What is your anger? If you're sitting in your house because you paid the mortgage already, so it's now really your house, not the bank's, and you have a meal and you're expecting dessert, and somebody says, "Sorry, you can't have dessert." I understand if you get angry. I understand if you shout and scream and say, "I want my dessert! To your house, it's your dessert! What do you mean I can't have it?"
But if you're in somebody else's house and they feed you a six-course meal and you're expecting dessert, and they say, "Sorry, no dessert." You get angry? Can you pound on the table and say, "I want my dessert! Your dessert, not your house!" Can you say, "Thank you for the six-course meal"? No. "I want my dessert! In fact, I'm gonna go to the refrigerator and help myself." You're sitting in somebody else's house. They serve you some food, they give you a drink, and you don't go into the refrigerator and demand. That makes you a religious holy man? Well, I don't do that because I'm religious. No, you don't do that because you're sane. Not your house.
If we realize I didn't create the world and I didn't create myself, what am I getting angry about? And then, on the other hand, you get angry at God. Why does God do this? It is His house. So you justify being angry at Him when it's His house. It's backwards. We are guests in someone else's creation. How do we justify getting angry? "I don't like the way you run your house. You don't know how to treat guests. You don't serve dessert." It's out of place. Out of place.
A person can be justified in getting angry maybe once a year, not more than that. What are you angry about? Now, you can object. Obviously, you're not, you're not, you're not a pushover. If someone is misbehaving, you object. Not because you're angry, but because it's wrong. Sometimes when you should get angry, you don't get angry because you don't care. That's not right either. So if you see somebody doing something that is simply wrong, it should bother you. But you're angry because it's wrong? People shouldn't be choosing to behave that way. So if you're upset with immoral behavior, that shows that you're a decent person. But if you're angry because of something happening to you, that's unnecessary. Don't justify it.
So if you do get angry, what do you do? Bite your tongue? Suffer silently? No. You just remind yourself, "I have no reason to be angry. I'm here to make the world better, which means it's not such a good world, otherwise you wouldn't need me to make it better." So when you see something that gets you angry, well, there's your job. That's like if you're the dishwasher and you walk into the kitchen and there are dirty dishes. You see who made all these dishes dirty? No dirty dishes, you're out of a job. So if you see something happening in the world that is not so nice, okay, fix it. That's what you're here for. That's your life course. Your existence would be better if it never happened. If there were no dirty dishes, your existence would be much easier, but then you'd have no job.
So again, the distinction between living and existing. If you're focused on your existence, you find all sorts of reasons to get angry, angry about everything, because in existence, nothing ever goes right. So you get angry about everything. But if you're focused on living, then when you see something that could get you angry, your reaction is, "What do I do to fix this?" If I see it, you know, "See something, say something"? No, you see something, fix it. Don't just say something. That means you have a life. You're living your life. So anger simply dissipates. You don't bite your tongue. You don't get angry because there are so few occasions for anger, justified anger.
A guy with a guilt complex complained to his psychiatrist. He says, "You know, last week I didn't feel guilty. Must be my fault." You can get so stuck in guilt. It's like a perverse pleasure. The guiltier I feel, the more pleasure I get from it. Extremely. "Don't I have a right to be angry now?" That doesn't mean I have a right to then carry whatever it is I've done for you up or do something else. But I think that sounds justified. Sounds right. But really, what you're saying is, "Don't I have a right to sue you?" I don't have to get angry. I just take you to court or whatever, right? "Don't I have a right to walk into your house and just help myself to your money because it's really mine?" Do I have to get angry about it? In other words, rather than get, you know, the expression, "Don't get angry, get even." In other words, straighten, straighten the record, get paid, even without anger.
So anger is not necessarily the solution. In fact, it could get in the way. You're so angry, you can't think straight. So should you object when somebody doesn't pay you? Well, of course. Should you demand payment? Yes, absolutely. Don't have to get angry. Like a policeman arresting somebody for misbehaving. Does he have to be angry at the guy? He better not be, then you get police cruelty. So the anger is really unnecessary. What you're really saying is, "I demand justice." That doesn't come from anger. That comes from knowing right from wrong.
But here's an interesting thing. A guy tells me that he hit his wife because he got angry. He says, "I lost control and I hit her." I said, "With a bat? You hit her with a bat?" He said, "Oh, don't be crazy." I said, "Oh, wait a minute. If you lost control, why didn't you hit her with a bat?" He said, "That's crazy." So you didn't really lose control. You gave yourself permission to hit her with your hand. You would never hit her with a bat. What are you, crazy? Oh, so you're not out of control. So when a guy says, "I lost control," he didn't. He gave himself permission. I said, "You know, as long as you were angry at her, you're going to hit her. Why don't you kill her?" He didn't lose control. He gave himself permission.
So the argument that, "Once I get angry, I lost control." No, you didn't. You'll only go as far as your brain lets you go. So you say anger is an emotion. Yeah, but you still have a brain, and your brain controls those emotions to some degree. And your brain said, "Yeah, hit her. How about a bat?" Your brain said, "No, no, not a bat. What are you, crazy?" To make amazing.
So in essence, aren't you also saying that anger can be a motivating factor? It can motivate you to something. Now, that doesn't mean that you can just do whatever. Anger very rarely is useful. Rarely. Not five times a day, not even five times a year. Imagine your child does something, gets you angry. Happens. Is it useful?
If you act in a violent manner with your anger, instead of trying to find a way or a solution to fix it, if it makes you angry, evidently there's something wrong in this situation. So let's look at it from the kid's perspective. The kid does something, and his father reacts with anger, not violence, just really angry. What is the child getting? Could be one of two things. Either the child is thinking, "Boy, I gotta watch it. This guy has an itchy trigger finger. He gets angry really easily. He's dangerous. I'm afraid of him." That could be one response. Right? The other response is, "Wow, I must have done something really bad to get him angry." But if you get angry five times a day, the kid is never gonna think, "Oh, I must have done something really bad to get him angry." No, he's angry all the time. Just an angry guy.
So when will the child get the message that your anger is a moral lesson? "Don't you ever do that again?" And when will the child simply be intimidated by your anger and just avoid you? It really depends on what you're angry about. If you're angry at the child, you're just threatening. He's going to be scared. He's going to run away. But if you're angry about the behavior, then the kid says, "Wow, it was that bad. What I did was really that bad." And maybe he won't do it again. So if you're upset with the behavior, that's called moral anger. "How could you do that?" Kid says, "All right, I won't do it again."
But imagine a mother says to a child, she gets angry at his. He said, "You know, I hate when you do that." Is that a moral lesson? No. It's just telling the child to avoid his mother. Or, "Yeah, before you do anything, just make sure she's not there." I actually heard this seven-year-old whisper to his six-year-old sister. They did something, and the mother got really angry, and the seven-year-old says, "I told you to wait till she left." In other words, they're not getting the message that the behavior is wrong. They just know that the mother's out of control. So wait till she leaves.