This post is very timely. Recently I developed some type of "learned helplessness" where I felt that shitty situations were being thrust upon me and I was drowning. What I was missing is that I had a lot of agency over these situations. I could have declined meetings, asked for help, missed deadlines, or risked disappointing whoever was requesting something from me.
Being angry and resentful didn't solve anything. So instead I asked myself "if I don't do this thing I don't like, what's the worst that will happen?". The answer most of the time turned out to be... "nothing."
What remained was what I chose and those things were worth doing whole-heartedly.
Did you try making a demonstration of anger at the parties who were thrusting these things upon you? This actually can be the correct course of action sometimes.
This might work, but as human beings we often have better options.
If you just cooly explain why you a request is unreasonable, then that acts as a rebuke to the requester. And it is one that can't be just dismissed as "ahh, she's on the rag".
This. Not always, but not infrequently, either. Demonstration of anger can be mild, but it should clearly show pushback.
There are many cases when we are being asked to do things that the person requesting them knows are not realistic. If one is being asked to do three things that are estimated as week long each in a week plus something else a "man, how can I do this? I cannot work 24 hour days" may be all it takes.
I am taking the exact opposite stance: now I let myself get infuriated at the very beginning of the first phone call. As much as I hate being angry, I have come to embrace the efficiency of the attitude.
I think humans get really motivated to do things for mainly 2 reasons: 1. because they gain something from completing the task (money, self satisfaction, social status, gratitude, etc.) 2. because it would cost them not to complete the task.
I noticed it myself: I am working harder for my clients that are more annoying to me. I want to make more efforts to reward my clients who are not being douchebags, but the truth is that I have more to gain from being at peace with the annoying ones that being nice to the nice ones.
It's the same reason why demanding people get upgraded in planes. The same reason that you can get a table at any reataurant if you're loud enough. Or that your internet is fixed faster if you shout through your phone.
The question is: is it more unpleasant for you to let yourself be angry or is it more unpleasant for you to not get what you want?
Acting annoyed can get you to a local maximum of helpfulness from others, but it will never get you very close to the global maximum. Moving toward the global maximum requires you to be sensitive to other people's state of mind and being angry dulls this sensitivity. Being annoyed might be a useful tool to have in your toolbox, but don't fool yourself into thinking you can't do better.
Your model of what motivates people is only valid for situations where people feel low levels of connectedness to the person they're dealing with. Essentially, you're missing an important dimension, along which you need to travel to get to the global maximum of helpfulness.
This comes back to the two primary ways of motivating someone: the carrot or the stick.
Most people use the stick, because that's what they're used to and it's what works faster. When it works. But it damages your relationship with the other person. They'll resent you for making them do something out of fear.
Of course, if it's someone who you'll never see again, maybe you don't care, but you can also learn how to motivate people in a positive way. Then, they will do things for you, because they like you.
If you have some exposure to game theory you will learn that consistently collaborating will not be the best approach in every situation. If people learn that you consistently collaborate they will intuitively start abusing that (e.g: force you to play "chicken", "the volunteer's dilemma" or any model game in which the collaborator loses). That's to start with.
Now, competing doesn't mean losing control of yourself and explode and become vulgar. It also does not mean having bad intentions and being evil. Whatever you decide to do, compose yourself and don't let your emotions take over. And try to keep your motivations well-intentioned.
If you are going through a bad moment... a good tool for introspections and analyzing your situation is the SWOT chart (4 quadrants: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). You can express your current situation in terms of these 4 things, to better understand and identify ways to use your strengths and opportunities, work on your weaknesses and mitigate threats.
Another important concept is balance. Try to find the imbalances in your life. What are excesses, what are the things you are lacking... and find ways to balance things out. Your anger might come out of frustration generated from these imbalances.
If people give you a hard time, read a book called: "The No Asshole Rule". Now, those are not the only types of draining people. Just try to not let people drain you emotionally, at least not for a good reason. If after an interaction with someone you consistently feel drained, it's time to avoid that person for your own good.
I think in general one should try to be nice to everyone but yes, in my own experience, collaboration and being nice all the time is probably not the best strategy. It can be very demanding on one's mental health.
I say it because lately I have found myself engaging in far too many emotionally draining conversations with a few friends and coworkers. These are generally negative/depressed/anxious people. Of course, they need someone who they can talk and lighten their loads but they end up passing their load on me. After lunch or dinner with these friends, I feel too tired to contribute anything positive when I am with my other friends or more importantly with my wife.
One should not be sounding board for everyone but only close friends and family.
Most of the anger I experience or come across from others is borne out of selfishness. The article makes a good point. Controlling anger is usually in our best self interest - thereby being a means of tempering our selfishness for long or short term benefit.
It points to something else which is not discussed as much: Self control. The amount of times I've seen grown adults and over 60s acting like petulant children over the most minor inconvenience. I cant help but think that in the span of your life you have not yet learnt to control your emotions.
Some comments refer to buddhism. Which to me is a form of self control.
Some other comments, point out rightly (imo) that Anger like all emotions serves a purpose and should not simply be ignored. I think the purpose of anger is to highlight (but not validate) the differences between our expectations and reality.
In order to assess the balance between our expecations and reality, you need self control, I think. Otherwise you can act out of haste.
I learned this lesson by experience. I am partner in a popular marketing site and so I get a lot people who are interested in JV opportunities from all around the world. Now I like getting directly to the point (“Hi Max. Tell me what I can help you with.”) because it saves us time and we both know this is a JV call so if the other person has a list or opportunity that matches ours, it's on.
Unfortunately most JV calls I've had start off like a dick measuring contest. People love to boast how big their business is and how this can be start of a million dollar partnership, yada yada. This becomes especially infuriating when the other person is blatantly lying just to impress you. Earlier I used to get kind of pissed off or started 1-upping them while getting irritated and angry of what I'm doing with my time. Now I just put the phone on speaker and do something else saying "sure" or "great" from time to time. Not only does it save my time, I don't lose my focus after and yes, I close more deals and create longer relationships. So yes, this don't be a child philosophy is really great, esp for geeks (like me) who think that the shortest distance between two points is always the best route.
Granted my side business is extremely tiny, but I get such calls from time to time. Usually it's how I can work for free, or give away free stuff, with the idea that I will somehow cash in on it later.
I used to work in call centers and I would try to de-escalate angry customers. When they settled down and were decent in return, I'd do everything I could to help them. Sometimes, I'd even bend the rules to help out a decent person with their problem.
If the person continued to heap abuse upon me, I'd do everything by the book. I wouldn't bend the rules. I wouldn't provide helpful suggestions to help people get what they wanted from a manager.
Be nice to people and more often than not, they'll be nice to you in return.
I am probably yelling into the void, but I've adopted a tactic that's made a big difference in my life. I used to feel personally slighted constantly. Someone cutting me off in traffic, neighbor too loud, person talking on their phone loudly in public. It all made me really angry. Sometimes I would remember these slights for days, weeks, or years.
Then one day, I read about having a "I don't give a fuck" attitude and applying it to everything in life. I did this and at first of course I was faking it. Stuff still pissed me off but I pretended it didn't. I would grind my teeth and tell myself IDGAF. Constantly. Many times a day. IDGAF. I would smile and act happy and didn't let it show that anything ever phased me.
It's been a few months of doing this really hardcore, and it's honestly made me not give a fuck to a pretty big extent. I feel like I'm a less uptight guy, I don't take myself as seriously, I don't let people get to me and I don't let things stress me out. If someone throws some shit at me, I just go with it. Laugh about it and give them space if it's not going to resolve itself. Sometimes I don't have a response to something shitty because my mental gears are working to not give a fuck when I really do, but that's fine. I don't need a response to everything. Silence is fine. I don't really give a fuck.
Give it a shot. I don't rub it anyone's face and I would definitely not tell anyone in person about my attitude because it ruins the facade. It's really cut a lot of negativity out of my life and I think I'm probably on the road to being a more likable person.
TL;DR: Wouldn't life be so much better if we all had to be Stepford Wives, faking our utmost delight and happiness despite whatever misfortune might come our way, and nary ever committing that most heinous crime of grumping or letting it be outwardly visible that we're not in the best mood today. Would that not be a most delightful utopia, o ever-smiling citizen?
I disagree wholeheartedly, that being happy in the face of being treated like shit will get you what you want in that type of situation. What is the author basing his assumptions off of?
Really? I read this as being more about unproductive anger "cross-talk" -- being angry with a previous situation or disjoint context and taking it out on (largely) innocent bystanders, often the very people who could actually help you now or in the future.
I generally explain to the CSR I am on the phone with when I need to make an unpleasant phone call:
Look, I know this isn't your fault. I know you didn't cause this, but I need to be angry at someone.
If you could redirect my call to the right person it would be greatly appreciated.
I generally either receive very good service (a thank you goes a long way), or I get forwarded to someone whose job it is to deal with "problem" customers and we have at it.
If you accept abuse with a smile, then you're just going to keep on receiving abuse. The reason companies get away with providing this kind of appalling customer service is because too many people put up with it out of politeness.
By the time I've been treated like this by a company, I've already made up my mind to stop using their service ASAP. When I finally get through to an operator, my aims are:
1. Get a fix to my immediate problem.
2. Waste as much of the company's time, money and goodwill as possible. They've wasted my time by putting me on hold, but every minute I spend arguing with an operator or, better yet, a supervisor, is time the company is paying someone for, and has an opportunity cost, because they're not speaking to some other customer.
3. Piss–off the operator enough that they'll consider quitting their job. I do feel sympathy for people who work in these call centres, but only the same way I'd feel sympathy for the soldier of an evil regime. It doesn't stop me viewing them as the enemy.
Right now there is a metastasised corporate approach to running customer service that has focussed on cutting costs and outsourcing to the point that the actual service provided is totally dysfunctional. The result is that if you have any problem, with any large company, it is a crapshoot whether you will ever get it fixed. This situation is a deliberate choice on the part of the companies involved.
This won't change by people being calm and friendly and swallowing their anger, any more than politics ever gets fixed by people voting for the marginally less corrupt/incompetent candidate every four years. And anyone who tells you it will is either naive or dishonest.
This situation will only change through a revolution in consumer behaviour that makes it too difficult and/or expensive for the companies to continue as is. Companies that think it's OK to treat their customers like garbage need to be met with concentrated and directed anger at every opportunity. Giving their customer services employees such hell that they can't retain them is just the start of it.
When it becomes impossible for companies to act like this without unleashing a tsunami of fury from every direction, you can bet they'll change their approach pretty quickly.
In a former life, I worked Tier 1 for one of America's largest credit card company. We had a lot more latitude than you seem to realize or care to know.
I once, over ninety minutes and three credit department reps, convinced the organization to extend additional credit to a woman dying of terminal cancer, so that she'd be able to afford pain medication a while longer. This was of course a bad credit risk, in the sense that she had no realistic prospect of ever repaying her debts, or indeed of living long enough to do so; I don't know whether you are familiar at all with terminal illness, and I hope for your sake you are not, but there is often a point at which acceptance and exhaustion become perceptible in a person's voice, and she had passed it. You would of course argue that it's of no significance to the company whether such a person dies peacefully or otherwise, and to a certain extent this is of course true. What you overlook is that companies, even very large ones, are made of people, and that those people have agency and will surprisingly often go very far out of their way in order to help a customer, even if doing so might carry a personal cost for them. (In the case I describe, it cost me about $400. I knew it would. Some things matter.)
I also dealt with people who operated under the idea that being unpleasant to me would benefit them somehow. At least, I assume some of them thought that way; others no doubt were just nasty people in general. The thing about serving as the human interface to a company is that we don't stop being human when we put our headsets on and log in to the PBX, and the thing about latitude is that it goes both ways.
Recognize our shared humanity despite your entirely reasonable frustration and behave toward me on that basis, and I'll go to great effort to help you, even if it costs me something.
Treat me as a disposable vessel for your anger at some imaginary cipher you cherish of the company for which I work, and you're going to have a damn hard time getting so much as a late fee waived.
(Oh, and by the way - you're not going to make me think about quitting my job, and it is a comedy of arrogance that you imagine otherwise. You are 1/150 of my average daily workload. Do you really think you have power over me? You have the power to ruin your reputation among my colleagues - we can't say things like "what an asshole" in account notes, for reasons of professionalism and liability, but we can convey the same meaning in other words, and we do. And you have the power to influence my analysis of whether it is worth my limited time to come to your assistance with whatever problem has prompted your call. But to imagine you have the power in a three-minute phone call to materially affect the course of my life and the decisions I make therein? What astonishing hubris!)
You inveigh against "companies that think it's OK to treat their customers like garbage", and in that, and that alone, you're not wrong. But you fail to realize, or perhaps to care, that, when you interact with customer service, you aren't talking to companies, but to people. You seem to think that treating those people with cruelty has value. It does not. Such behavior is both counterproductive and beneath you. It also, in my professional experience, is much less common than I think you suspect - you really are an outlier here, and whatever mass movement of which you imagine yourself to be a part really does not exist. I have to say I feel
for you - it must be awfully lonely to be where you are. But the extent of my sympathy is strictly circumscribed by the fact that you bring it on yourself.
>I once, over ninety minutes and three credit department reps, convinced the organization to extend additional credit to a woman dying of terminal cancer, so that she'd be able to afford pain medication a while longer.
>In the case I describe, it cost me about $400
This sounds like an interesting incentive structure. Could you elaborate?
Sure. We were incentivized to maximize a range of metrics, primary among which was average call length, over successive two-week periods. The value of the incentive was tied to the degree to which a given operator exceeded the global average for the call center, and there were some disqualifying conditions such as an error rate exceeding some set minimum I no longer recall. We had access to our own metrics on a daily basis, and the value calculation was published, so tracking incentive value was pretty trivial - this was well before smartphones existed, so I wrote up the formula as a TI-BASIC program that took metric values and gave back how much of a bonus I stood to receive in my next pay packet.
Customer commendations, one of which I received for the call I described, weren't figured into the incentive metric. (Or, unlike customer complaints, into much of anything else; it wasn't a job with a career path, although we did get nice little laminated plaques, the twenty or so of which I received I probably still have somewhere.) So I knew that exceeding the center average by a factor of thirty was going to unrecoverably hose my incentive metrics for the period, and I knew exactly how much doing so would cost me. But, as I said, some things matter.
Pay attention to your mental balance people. On average it's never a problem, but when stuck, anxiety can have significant somatic impact, raised secretions of acid in your stomach, trouble eating (stuck oesophagus valve), lack of bowel movements, or worse like artery constriction, thus potential increase in blood clot, which doesn't need more explanations.
I learned a while ago (in therapy) to decouple anger from action. I can feel angry, and just not act on it. Without an action to act on attached to my anger, the anger just mind of melts away. Reducing need feel angry is a different skill.
How do I convey my real, justified anger to The Company instead of a person?
It may not be effective (or fair) to get hostile, but by the time I'm yelling, it's because I've realized The Company doesn't care about my emotional state, and this person is another willing participant in a silently abusive system, even if they're just reading the Company-provided script to get the Company-provided paycheck. Perhaps too few humans have perfect emotional regulation, but it's not surprising that some react accordingly.
The people who designed these insensitive systems knew that they would eventually turn all our hearts cold at no cost to The Company. Julian's response is to keep being nice to keep his transactional relations as smooth as possible. The representative's responsive is to vent to their co-workers about how stupid and mean customers are. Mine is to yell when I'm angry. But aren't we all suffering from the same flawed system?
At this point in time, it's no one person's fault, and there's little incentive to fix it, so this probably won't change until emotionally attuned software can replace customer service reps.
>How do I convey my real, justified anger to The Company instead of a person?
By evaluating whether the way you're conveying it would be appropriate in a public place with a third party observing you. People understand and expect a certain level of anger when things aren't right, but if your demeanor on the phone would offend a neutral party observing your call - you have gone too far. A good way to do this is to imagine how you'd talk to a cashier with other people in line. If it's drawing too much attention and make the person next in line uncomfortable - you have gone too far.
> When Max picked up the phone, you should have exclaimed, “Hey, Max! It’s a pleasure to chat. I would love to hear what you’re up to.” And you should have said it genuinely.
Should have, yes, if you really felt that way. And if you can feel that way geniunely, that's the best.
However, I don't think it's right to lie like that if you don't really feel that way. You can go a long way being nice without lying.
But, on don't just give up and say, "I'm just not nice." That's a problem, and if you feel that way all the time, you should go see or talk to someone: a family member, a friend, a GP doctor, a psychiatrist, or anyone that will listen and help you figure out the real problem. You might need more sleep. You might need medicine. You might need a chiropractic adjustment. You might need to vent. You might need to just spend time with another person. You might need to be alone in nature.
I grew up angry because I was unsafe and couldn't defend myself. Strong motivator. My children grew up safe in nice neighborhoods because of it. Being powerless as a kid led directly to starting my own businesses. It was the surest way I could buy safety. It allowed me to build up a buffer against the rest of the world.
I agree with most of what is said here. What has personally helped me is to know the limits of patience and to walk out of the scenario as soon as those limits cross. In the quoted instance, I would have never waited for 35 minutes on the call . I would have cut the call in 10 regardless of the expected outcome.
It's better to judge what kind of a situation you are walking into and set expectations accordingly. For instance, in Bangalore I know that it is normal for people to be late for meetings. Traffic is bad, your previous meetings don't end on time etc. So I'll be prepared for a 15-30 minute wait. Beyond that I'll just cancel and move on. I failed do this on an interview and it was just an unpleasant experience. The interviewer was pissed and so was I. We just wasted the next 30 minutes.
So if you have something you need to accomplish, and you can't do it in the ten minutes you allow for your interaction, what do you do?
The classic example in the US is the silly cable plans here that give "promotional" rates for a year or two and then double or triple in cost automatically. What would you do in this situation if it would take, say, 45 minutes on the phone to get what you need?
I presume they won't tell you the wait time upfront. In such a case, calling the cable company will be my secondary activity on a headset while watching a movie or something of that sort. I'm just saying that I'll be prepared for the wait.
His Holiness: Oh, yes, of course. I'm a human being. Generally speaking, if a human being never shows anger, then I think something's wrong. He's not right in the brain. [Laughs.]
Seeing "his holiness" out of context, isn't it a bit of a useless title? Anyone can be "his holiness" (unless it's a woman), depending on what anyone believes in. I was confused why you're linking to an interview with the dalai lama for something the pope said.
Funny (by that I mean not-funny-at-all) thing I've discovered about myself:
It's a hell of a lot easier to let go of my anger when it's directed at someone else, but when it's directed at me, I hold on to that anger with both hands, tooth and nail.
To me, anger is easiest to dissolve when you take a step back—physically if necessary—and observe the situation.
More often than not you'll find there was a communication breakdown somewhere, and you can resolve that breakdown instead of react to where the miscommunication led.
The real danger is burying anger to save face, as is common in many cultures. Taking it home with you, or passing it to someone else. Resolve why your brain feels dissonance and something that angers you can be dealt with rationally and simply.
I was in an elevator and thought something scary happened ... But then the elevator normally opened on a floor and I realized it was nothing.
Or you hear a scary sound by the door -- but then see it was nothing.
You thought that something was due Monday but now realize it's not.
You can make a mental shortcut to STOP feeling fear right there. Yes you will still have the brain chemistry for a bit, but you can snap back into being productive and relaxed.
> We often think, If I'm blatantly angry, they'll understand that I'm unhappy with the situation.
I think he misses the mark with this idea. People don't strategically get angry. Nobody chooses anger in advance as a means to influence change or broadcast a dislike.
Anger is immediate, real-time. Precisely why it's so difficult to control. As we get older, we learn to moderate and channel this energy rather than letting the fire hose spray in all directions.
My thoughts on anger are this: don't suppress it or ignore it. Acknowledge it, then do your best to channel it. If that means firmly telling John what you think of his company's service in no uncertain terms - without being rude - then this is a good outcome. Even use an elevated tone. Such tones are useful, we have them in reserve for when an injustice happens. Nothing wrong with that. John can handle it, he's not a precious flower ready to crumble because of an unhappy client.
Feedback is important. Let's not aim for a world where everything is a "thumbs up".
Being extra nice to "John" for the sake of "not being angry" is counter-productive and doesn't help anyone.
Yes they do. And it's not uncommon. The overwhelming majority of the angry calls I got were /not/ genuine anger. At least it wasn't anger about anything I or the company was doing. It felt like, more often than not, people needed an outlet, so they directed that energy towards someone who is paid to "be nice no matter what".
It is VERY hard. Some may even call it bad temper. Some call it self control. But sometimes I think some system are in place as if they were there just to make you angry. In tech terms, these UX are bad. And it is exactly this reason we can innovate, and someday an idea was born from this frustration into a startup.
Other thing that easily set me off is Hypocrite. I would much rather they admit they are a asshole. And I am fine with that.
Thinking back now I think I have grow up with a little bit more patient, rather then spending time to get angry, I just spend time doing something else worthwhile. Hypocrite I can ignore, but someone put me in the wrong, is still something i cant over come yet. I tried to let time fix it. But the anger still creeps in once I sit down and not doing anything as if evil is trying to seduce me into darkness.
Many mention here the power to control your anger as Intelligent and smart. I am not sure if those are the correct word to use. I think they are wise, which I think is something different to Intellect.
I am using the word "I think" here a lot, because i am not sure if any of these of sure, so correct me if I am wrong.
I have wondered if retaliatory or impatient anger has any correlation with the ability to delay gratification. There is a famous study that showed how delayed gratification is somewhat a good predictor of success and intelligence [1].
Now I'm not for suppressing anger but I have seen many times how not being an ass generally gets what you want. That being said you can sort of combine the two if you have two parties which is what my wife and I do frequently with customer service aka "good cop, bad cop".
This reminds me of the self awareness tools codified by the Arbinger Institute in their book, Leadership and Self Deception, where they describe how to "get out of the box." I also highly recommend The Anatomy of Peace by them.
Many good points in the article. However, anger suppression is not always rational. If others are aware they can treat you badly and you'll smile and carry on, there is little incentive for them to treat you well. If they are aware you have a self-destructive policy that will also impose costs on them, they may modify their behaviour.
I'm not too happy with the framing of this post. It's rather guilt-trippy (this is highly common in self-help these days, sadly), and, as most such advice, it relies on making you feel bad in overt ways rather than making a good argument. But I'm also getting a strong manipulative vibe here.
The author makes unfounded claims and then calls the reader a child if they don't agree with the author.
The terms "asshole" and "jerk" are being thrown rather liberally. You're not an asshole or a jerk if you want to end a conversation.
People who do not immediately reciprocate are not automatically takers with no concept of generosity.
Anger is not "childlike". It's an emotion, like many others. I've seen it plenty in older people. Some people could use more of it. Some people have too much of it. This is true for virtually every emotion. Shutting it down instead of calibrating can cause problems. Most of this is irritation, not anger, anyway. Passive-aggressiveness often occurs when it's not possible to release emotions properly. At the end of the day, we're not Vulcans, but some environments practically demand that we express no strong emotions of any kind, which is not without side effects. We should work with what we are, not what we like to pretend to be, and I think emotions have been getting a lot of bad rap lately.
Emotions are of informational value in and of themselves and most of us do not express them as a means to an end. We express them because we feel them. Whether or not we should be feeling a particular emotion is a more interesting discussion. And the effect such a thing will have on other people depends a lot on the situation and the culture...
The language just creeps me out.
> "John" sounds patient and caring. He actually wants to help.
> He won't go above and beyond when it turns out his ex-cofounder is someone who can help you.
> You know, the self that is good at getting what it wants from others.
> And you should have said it genuinely. Even if you're feeling miserable. With your sudden warmth, Max is appreciative that you’re making his hustle easier, and he goes out of his way to tell you what he can do for you at the end of the call.
I do not find it a great thing if someone is in a poor mood, thinks I'm a waste of time, but then tries to mimic genuine warmth without actually feeling it in order to get what they want and maximize their use of time. I'd much, much rather they brush me off as fast as possible.
There's a word that describes people like this but I'd rather not use it. I'm OK with "not valuing my time" if it means I remain genuine. I do not want to live in a world of masks. I expect people to occasionally be irritated, cold, and otherwise not on their best emotional performance. I expect it even more if I am indeed at risk of wasting their time. Them being irritated and such is a cue to me to understand what's going on, if they are masking it, how can I tell? Emotions are information.
I find it much more productive to expect people to express emotions and learn to understand them, empathize with them, as well as tolerate them. The people don't have to construct elaborate masks, and I don't have guess as to what everyone's feeling.
This doesn't seem like a good source of emotional advice to me.
Western culture is so obsessed about suppressing anger at all costs. Like each person is a nuclear weapon that needs to be aggressively contained or else the entire fabric of civilization will collapse.
Anger exists for a reason and it exists for good reasons. The manifestation of anger means some model you are holding onto is no longer in sync with reality and that resynchronization costs more than your time preferences will allow. (Using the authors scenario, your expectation was for a reasonably timed phone call, not a 35 minute wait.)
It's not that anger is wrong. The anger is correct. The expectation was wrong. The West automatically assumes all instances of anger are permanently wrong, and this child-like ritual prevents one from appreciated the value of anger as a compulsion that tells you in no uncertain terms that your expectation is completely out of whack and you need to either cut your losses or resynchronize the expectation.
Anger becomes fuel for remodeling reality once you understand what is is trying to tell you. Putting taboos up around it prevents this realization, which in turn, creates people who are trained to perpetually cling to false models of reality out of fear of violating the taboo.
Anger is our emotional mechanism to tap into strength and endurance reserves, while simultaneously suppressing pain. It is adaptive when you're fighting for the life of yourself or a loved one. It causes tunnel-vision, and it is not really a healthy state in general though, so it is definitely maladaptive if you aren't about to engage in some sort of physical conflict. You can recognize something is wrong, and be motivated to do something about it without getting angry, and generally things turn out better if you can avoid anger.
I totally agree with you except for the part of avoiding angry. It shouldn't be avoided but redirected towards something more useful. For example it's a great fuel for lifting weights at the gym.
I would be cautious about that, there are even warnings about this approach around the web. Reason - if pissed off, you might push yourself a bit too much and risk of injury is much, much greater since your mind wants to fly (or see those barbells fly sky high), but your body is exactly same as usual, with it's weak spots.
if you end up injured while trying to get some steam off, now that would piss and disappoint many.
so gym yes, but I would put a bit lower weights, or go for some cardio
Most strength training programs prescribe how much weight you're going to lift on any given day. I can tell you how much I'm going to lift today, and I can tell you how much I'm going to lift on Friday. In that context the anger makes it easier to succeed, but doesn't pose much, if any threat. I'm not going to put extra weight on the bar, beyond what I was scheduled to attempt.
Right, acknowledge the anger and move past it. It's like stress-related issues, your mind/body is telling you that there is a problem that needs to be resolved.
If something repeatedly causes anger or stress it might be a good idea to re-evaluate whether you need that thing in your life. Stuck in a 35-minute queue? It might be time to take your business elsewhere. Angry and motivated often go hand-in-hand.
Well yeah but you don't carry around a dumbell, do you? Anger is a waste of energy and very dangerous in most of the cases. It should be avoided at all costs unless you're going into a fight and don't have any other choice.
I wholeheartedly disagree with the OP of this line of commentary. Saying anger is good and one should embrace it is a really bad suggestion.
Anger makes you blind, it fogs your rational thinking and makes you do things you'll probably regret afterwards.
IIRC, there's a Terry Pratchett's quote that says something like this: "(...)you should be afraid of that cashier at the supermarket that quietly is being yelled all the time until one day he appears with a shotgun".
The worst thing you can do is avoiding anger because sooner or later you'll explode. Learn to handle it or burn all that excess of energy on something useful but never avoid it.
There is a big difference IMO between avoiding anger and suppressing it, especially for a long time. If one can avoid anger, great; no need to get artificially angry (if one knows he will likely be on hold for 45 minutes, he can call during a less busy time or pick a service that supports callbacks).
Suppressing anger for a while (by self-distraction, leading yourself to see the other side of the coin, whatever) might be worse than stepping out for 30 seconds and letting go (e.g., by laying waste to a plastic cup). My 2c.
Suppressing anger is something else. If you suppress anger, you still feel angry inside but do an effort not to express it. This is likely not healthy in the long run and I don't think this method has any substantial support.
However you can remove anger by acknowledging your feelings, recognizing them as a fruitless and unnecessary state of mind and then letting go. This requires practice but when you succeed you'll see benefits in mood and likely also in stress levels and long term health.
It's not about assuming that anger is wrong. It's about understanding that anger rarely has any benefits.
It's also ironic that you see the Western culture as particular obsessed with suppressing anger. Our media and culture has become increasingly more angry and less inhibited the recent decades. I have the experience that people are more aggressive and ranting than ever. Just take the current presidential election as an example. We have the most hostile climate around the candidates ever and the media and the people love it.
I don't think the Confucius quote is real, but there are a few relevant ones:
"Not being angry at someone who doesn't know, isn't this a Gentleman?" 人不知而不愠，不亦君子乎？
"Ji Wenzi thought three times before acting. Confucius heard this, and said 'twice is enough'." 季文子三思而后行。子闻之曰：“再，斯可矣。”
In the specific context of his student Zi Zhang asking Confucius about how to get an official salary, he responded: "Hear much and put aside the points of which you stand in doubt, while you speak cautiously at the same time of the others:—then you will afford few occasions for blame. See much and put aside the things which seem perilous, while you are cautious at the same time in carrying the others into practice:—then you will have few occasions for repentance. When one gives few occasions for blame in his words, and few occasions for repentance in his conduct, he is in the way to get emolument." (tr. Legge)
Surely every culture will have anti-anger norms and literature. The parent comment is claiming that in western culture we take it to an unhealthy extreme.
I am an easterner who spent a few years in USA. In the beginning, I sort of liked how people seemed in control of their emotions in situations which would make me visibly angry. No one displayed their anger/frustration to the extent I am used to. This may be anecdotal but with time I observed that deep inside they lingered these emotions more than I would do, which as you implied, is unhealthy.
There's a difference between discontent or frustration and hate & aversion. In buddhist view: hate and aversion will create enormously negative mindstates that will cause suffering to the person acting on this emotion. But the vajrayana schools (mainly tibet) also claim that there is clarity and energy in this emotion, and if it can be detached from ego it can be transformed to a positive "wisdom". I think this view encaptures the sentiment of both people here, anger can be positive, but also very negative.
> the vajrayana schools (mainly tibet) also claim that there is clarity and
> energy in this emotion
That's probably because Tibetan Buddhism became a tool of political domination.
The earliest Buddhist records explicitly recommend suppressing anger, even by sheer force of will if necessary (but only as a last resort.)
If evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion or delusion —
still arise in the monk while he is attending to the relaxing of
thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts, then — with his teeth
clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth — he should beat
down, constrain, and crush his mind with his awareness. As — with his teeth
clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth — he is beating
down, constraining, and crushing his mind with his awareness, those evil,
unskillful thoughts are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he
steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it.
Just as a strong man, seizing a weaker man by the head or the throat or the
shoulders, would beat him down, constrain, and crush him; in the same way, if
evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion or delusion — still
arise in the monk while he is attending to the relaxing of thought-fabrication
with regard to those thoughts, then — with his teeth clenched and his tongue
pressed against the roof of his mouth — he should beat down, constrain, and
crush his mind with his awareness.
Characterizing Tibetian Buddhism, practiced by many people around the world, as "a tool of political domination" is, to say the least, a bit of a stretch...
One obvious counter point is that the Dalai Lama, as the main representative of Tibetian Buddhism, is far more interested in political reconciliation than any sort of political domination. There are no tibetian lamas Buddhists that I know that seem interested in political domination. Quite the opposite, in fact. They are generally the most accomodating and open minded people. I know.
Also, I think the quote you are using is misleading for several reasons. First, for several paragraphs befor the exerpt, that particular sutta talks about being skillful with regard to those thoughts, abandoning them, ignoring them, questioning them, and being mindful of them without reacting to them. Also that passage is from a later translation of an early text, and the passage about crushing down or forcing your thoughts doesn't exist in the earlier text itself. This strongly suggests that beating down unskillful thoughts wasn't an original teaching, but was added later by a translator.
One last point, in general the idea of forcing your mind to do anything in particular isn't in-line with Buddhist teachings.
> that passage is from a later translation of an early
> text, and the passage about crushing down or forcing your
> thoughts doesn't exist in the earlier text itself
That's quiete a leap there. True, there were a lot of politics in Tibet, same for all the other buddhist countries. But to counter your point: anger is probably best surpressed if you want to easily dominate people.
Your sutra is from the theravada traditions. The vajrayana tradition is not recognized by the theravada tradition, the vajrayana does recognise the theravada sutra's, but in vajrayana there are a bit more tools for dealing with disturbing emotions. How that came to be is a discussion on it's own.
The method in your passage is recommended often as a last resort in these schools. So I'm not claiming you should let anger run it's free course, definitely not, better there are other ways of dealing with it.
It's not a leap for anyone prepared to do some independent research, or consider the profound contradictions between Buddhist spiritual goals and the realpolitik necessary to forge and maintain a nation state.
>if it can be detached from ego it can be transformed to a positive "wisdom".
I doubt it can be detached from the ego in anyone but the most advanced practitioners, if at all.
Anger creates a cognitive bias and narrows your attention to the object of threat. It distorts your perceptions.
I think the best way to handle anger is to acknowledge it and consciously try to let it go. Even the strongest anger will dissipate this way, because in order for anger to persist it has to be maintained by rumination on the object of the anger.
Anger in person can be effective and helpful. Not violence, just anger. I prefer disappointment, that I wish you had tried harder kind of feeling.
Anger only has a useful effect on people with power. Being mad at a phone rep is pointless. Being mad at an enterprise sales person that you've worked with for months can change things.
But they have to have some power. Never kick puppies.
Is that a West-only thing? My admittedly minor experience with some Japanese people is that in many settings they hide any discomfort (including outright anger) in order to not make a scene or lose face.
In fact, if can pinpoint being angry in public often to any country it's the US.
I thought so too until I started watching Russian road rage videos (just use those terms to search on Youtube). I think Russians take the cake for uninhibited anger displays!
I would argue that China, Japan, Korea, and other Buddhist-heavy nations have other cultural mechanisms to prompt one to remodel reality. Buddhist teachings make it very clear the desire is the source of suffering, and this axiom weaves its way through cultural institutions and norms in these countries.
If we accept this, then I would argue "anger suppression" in said countries isn't anger suppression in the Western sense ("We have to prevent the next Hitler at all costs!!!! No moar hate guise, kthx love all yaaaaay :) :) :) ") as much as it is part of an overall suppression of desire.
Though I am skeptical of the influence of Buddhism on suchva level (though I am a Buddhist myself), Buddhism does not have at its heart replacing the suppression of one emotion (anger) with another (desire), but rather the mere noticing of the arising and passing away of these emotions and reflecting on their traits as impermanent, unsatisfactory and not-self.
Mere suppression leads to inner fementation of emotion, not release from the emotions. However I will grant that Buddhist teachings may have been mis(applied|understood|interpreted) to lead to a suppression of emotion.
Let a man remove his anger. Let him root out his pride. Let him overcome all fetters of passions. No sufferings overtake him who neither clings to mind-and-body nor claims anything of the world.
>>Anger exists for a reason and it exists for good reasons
Anger originates from a time where responding with anger to a certain situation could save your life and rise the probability to reproduce. That was long ago before human reason arised. Today anger is an overkill for most of the situations we face in daily life. Fortunately we can use human reasoning to deal with this. Read the book A Guide To The Good Life: The Ancient Art Of Stoic Joy! It is a life changer.
Tl,dr: you don't have to suppress it because you can eliminate it by changing yor point of view.
Anger exists for a reason and it exists for good reasons.
Anger exists in order to keep animals on top of the sometimes deadly contests that exist in the world. It can cause feuds, but it also causes us to win them.
It is easy to see how the world would be better off with less anger. Harder to see how unilateral disarmement will help the individual. But even then, humans, the rational animals, have the option of cooling their heads and calculating a strategy.
The article talks about venting anger at people who had nothing to do with the reason for your anger. In my experience, how you treat people influences how they treat you. And it's hard to treat people right when you're angry over unrelated things.
Certainly, there are times when anger is justified and appropriate, but it is helpful to properly control it and not to aim it at people who are innocent bystanders.
There is something about being authentic, though, that is actually more useful then trying to hide your emotions all the time.
The flip side of this is to consider the point of view of an "innocent bystander". Does someone being angry at an unrelated event hurt them? Does the person describing that event to them, angrily, hurt them, either?
I think that I would trust someone more who had a range of emotion based on what has happened to them recently, than someone who always tried to show a particular "face" to everyone, regardless of their current circumstances.
In that sense, always hiding your anger is actually hurting your chances of being trusted by others, which I think is one of the most valuable things other people can give you.
I agree authenticity is valuable, but the "innocent bystander" doesn't have the context to even know that "angry-person-on-the-phone" is having a rough day.
Normally functioning adults do have some control over their emotions. If one is red-hot angry, they can take a deep breath, count to ten, put the situation into perspective, and reflect on the feelings of others. It is not an accident that this is what we tell children to do when they're having a fit-- it fucking works! This is not "hiding" anger, it is recognizing and dealing with anger.
> I think that I would trust someone more who had a range of emotion based on what has happened to them recently, than someone who always tried to show a particular "face" to everyone, regardless of their current circumstances.
Or, perhaps they managed to reduce their base anger response, and aren't actually hiding anything?
The motivation to do that is questionable. It could mean they think of everyone around them as children and feel the need to be able to handle them.
It could also mean that they are constantly trying to game people into believing they feel a certain way but they actually don't.
Or it could mean they were taught to do this at a young age, and it's an automatic response.
In any case, it makes one look less human and more likely a manipulator, or at least concerned with the manipulation of people enough to suppress an automatic reaction.
A more common reason may be that they feel they have healthier, more productive interactions with those around them when anger plays a reduced role.
I doubt that many would agree with you that those who react more calmly "look less human". People are generally drawn to those with a calm, positive demeanor, as they are often enjoyable to be around.
I'm thinking you can express the anger without making someone the target.
For example, in the hypothetical phone call, what if you say to John:
"John, I want to say I'm feeling very frustrated and angry right now. I expected a short call and I had to wait 35 minutes instead. I realize it's not your fault, but I wanted to get the feeling out, because you would have noticed it in my voice anyway."
It seems odd to me to have the innocent bystander as the one who should control their emotions by rationally deciding that it has nothing to do with them but not to have the original person who is mad at someone else not rationally decide that their anger has nothing to do with the person they're actually dealing with.
The expectation was wrong and the anger was right. It's the target of the anger that's wrong. That's why self-control and kindness were the better option. Further, they're more likely to get what you want out of the situation. A situation you've already invested a lot of effort into. The rational choice is doing what works. This also prevents extra anger. It's best choice for your emotions, too, even though they won't let you see that in heat of the moment. Hence, understanding that in a non-angry moment to start making a habit out of controlling and directing anger properly.
Although, I went further to not get pissed off at all as many times as I could for typical bullshit of corporations. I mentally relax, do other things, and am ready to focus the second support answers. I do something similar to what was advised. You'd be surprised how much good service I've gotten from especially Comcast but also others. There's, as author says, people that just don't give a damn. Most are happy to help and happier to be appreciated. Which is sincere on my part by the end of it so long as they put forth effort on the problem. :)
I don't think so. Anger is primordial trait of humanity. If it made you dumb we would not have evolved into the intelligent species we are today.
I think the author of the article is confusing anger with someone being mean. He mentions don't be angry with the guy on the other end. Why not say don't be mean to the guy on the other end but let him know that your not happy/angry/upset.
The emotional and rational aspects of the brain are separate, almost competing. The first thing you learn in combat training that's worth a damn is that being hot on emotions and/or adrenaline makes you illogical. People do stuff they later said was incredibly stupid. This is also said by many perps of domestic violence where anger kept building until the urge to attack was uncontrollable. Logic just wasn't there anymore because that's not where logic comes from.
We're taught to recognize we won't have as much self-control, train ourselves to avoid letting emotions control us in an encounter, spend times when we're calm to prepare for likely situations with rehearsed reactions, and defined points when we stop attacks. The combination of these, esp with repetition, lets us handle a highly stressful and illogical situation with low risk of permanent consequences. An ability almost nobody in these classes started with.
Same is true in customer service, management, etc where you're dealing with stress, anger, and/or uncertainty. Same principles. The customer service people most of all since they deal all day with people saying or doing things that would piss them off. By not getting pissed, they keep customers, get paid, and keep their companies from loosing customers. So, the principle to avoid acting in anger where possible just keeps showing up with financial losses or jail time avoided many times over by following it.
I don't think all anger is about models being violated, but if you said that some or even most (in the modern world) is I might better see where you're coming from.
Don't suppress your emotions. Feel them, acknowledge them, ask where they came from, then let them go. You don't always have to do this, of course, but it's a great thing to do with anger.
Mindfulness is really good for situations like anger. I don't know where GP is getting his or her information regarding 'the West' from, but the aversion to anger is certainly not a solely Western trait.
As a log from a pyre, burnt at both ends and fouled in the middle, serves neither for firewood in the village nor for timber in the forest, so is such a wrathful man.
— Anguttara Nikaya II, 95
He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me of my property. Whosoever harbor such thoughts will never be able to still their enmity.
Never indeed is hatred stilled by hatred; it will only be stilled by non-hatred — this is an eternal law.
"The manifestation of anger means some model you are holding onto is no longer in sync with reality and that resynchronization costs more than your time preferences will allow"
A different way that I know is: Anger is a secondary feeling that we use to cover the main feeling, may it be pain, sadness, or any other. Anger is a symptom, the hidden feeling is the cause. To manage anger we need to address the hidden feeling.
I agree that anger on it self is not wrong. But it is not a justification either. Hurting other people because I am angry is not ok either. And that is what the Western culture (or at least some of it) tries to address. To control the damage that the "out of sync" can produce
I believe that collaboration is saying what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. Now, the thing is doing it in a way that reflects respect.
Some people are not prepared to receive feedback, and will probably react strongly against it. It's easier to believe someone else is wrong than to accept that you are wrong. This becomes reinforced as more people support a wrong idea.
It's also useful to sticks to facts, not opinions, and emphasize the problem, not the person.
>Anger exists for a reason and it exists for good reasons.
I don't think I've ever seen someone build an apple orchard with anger, or sink a well, or construct a road between two nicely cooperating villages.
Anger exists to provide homage to entropy, and that really is about it. Life, mostly though, can exist at the other end of the spectrum without much anger required.
Wow! I love your comment! That's exactly what I think to myself. It is so stupid to suppress such a powerful source of energy for changing something in your head or/and in your life.
Some people only understand the language of anger. It really depends on the individual. Some people understand you when you're acting calmly 100% of the time. Others need to be reminded that what they're doing actually bothers you and the only way to get through to them and applying pressure is being loud and angry. But those are usually the people you souldn't be doing business with anyway.
My view is you're rarely dealing with individuals, it's company protocol and process you're really interacting with. The individuals you're talking too may or may not sympathize, and the may or may not be able to do anything for you, but it's luck of the draw. I think a lot of companies have decided to set up systems that make sure your issues end up in the ether and it's incredibly infuriating. I've been on both ends of it. When I send an angry email to Verizon because the email they sent me is an obvious attempt at getting me to accidentally overpay my bill, I don't consider the individual on the receiving end, but that's only because, as someone who's been on the receiving end countless times, I've never taken it personally. I usually agree with the end user on some level but know there might not be much I can do. I also understand that companies can't stop the presses for every complaint that comes in, but I think many companies, especially really big ones, bank on many of the things that make their customers angry and would prefer just to ignore them (insurance industry being the worst example of this). Unfortunately, it works like gangbusters. You can be as nice or as mean to any individual at a big company, but you'll most likely give up before anything beneficial for you gets done.
Companies often reward angry behavior by responding to the angry ones. It can actually be helpful on a help-line to pretend you are angry, which is a net negative for society.
"Get angry" is a perfectly valid, and sometimes very useful, negotiating tactic. Note that this is different from actually getting angry - if you're emotionally compromised, as Spock would say, you're less likely to be able play smart - but if you act angry (as you say, 'angry behaviour') at the right point it can greatly amplify your ability to get things done.
With company process this reasoning does not work. Emotions are a human concept, but companies are entirely about money. When you need to extract the security deposit out of your apartment complex that quite perceptibly has a policy of cheating the tenants out of as much as they can there is precisely no difference at all between "I'll send you the demand letter now" and "I'll send you the demand letter YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!!1!". The only thing that counts is that they receive one at a serviceable address. At least that has been the experience.
A case can be made that the poor sods working for the cheating company are in fact enabling it, consequently their lives should be made hard for colluding.
It sort of depends on whether the fact that you might act impulsively matters to the other party. This makes all the difference in nuclear war or so some strategists say... In customer service, an angry customer could do damage to PR or if they are a big client, could cut off the company unpredictably so it would force them to decide if they want you or not and if they do act quickly. It pays to understand the difference between these situations. Anger should be used selectively and only when it will be effective (and preferably when the other party deserves it).
I agree with this but let me ask you, how many do you think respond more from anger vs calmness? I think or at least I'd like to believe that more people respond from calmness and I'd rather interact and be successful through calmness even if it means I don't exactly get what I want that small amount of time from those who would respond better from anger.
Hmm, that's a good question. I guess in the vast majority of cases, calmness wins. Especially at the workplace. And usually, it's better to avoid the people who only understand the language of anger, rather than confront them. But sometimes, someone has to stand up to these people.
I don't think anger has a language. There is a difference between anger, calm, and commanding.
If, while I notice across the room, my two year old is about to shove a waffle into a VCR or similar port of entry for food into electronics, I will give a sharp word to "STOP!" This gets his attention, possibly makes him upset, and usually prevents the situation from escalating. This is a clear example of commanding. It can be done with a soft or a hard approach, but the results are generally the same. It's a warning -- that the activity or event is going to lead to real consequences if the behavior continues.
This is gross. Maybe don't be an asshole because you are hurting someone by doing it? Terrifying that a human being needs to think about the world in such a self centric way.
An article telling people to be nice for the sake of being nice would be correct, but not change a single person. That's because everyone knows they're supposed to be nice, we've been taught it since before kindergarten.
Yet people are still assholes at times.
The point of this article is to say "being an asshole isn't even having the effect you think it does. It makes things worse for you too. Try being nice -- it might actually make things better for you. And then you may keep it up."
> An article telling people to be nice for the sake of being nice would be correct, but not change a single person.
I have been influenced by blogs which make appeals to ethical conduct (for the sake of ethical conduct) as a desirable end goal.
So it is not true to say that such a blog wouldn't change a single person.
Further, there is a missed opportunity here to discuss the direct, personal physical, mental, and emotional benefits of unlearning excessive attachment to anger.
This is addressed: "Yes, this is a selfish and transactional view of relationships. But that's the point of this whole post: If you can't justify being nice for the sake of others, at least be nice for the sake of yourself."
You forget that anger is not a rational concept. Anger's usually not based in logic, it's usually a kind of emotion. You can reason with facts and with logic. You can't reason with an emotion.
The article in question doesn't try to say that the only reason to be nice to people is because they might have something for you. The reason the article exists at all is to provide people with yet another appeal to themselves to avoid anger. If you fail to rein in your anger with the idea of empathy or patience, how about using logic?
It's a shame you chose to read this article in such a negative light. I thought it was pretty good.
You've made incorrect assumptions about what I have or have not forgotten. I don't see why you think that making trivial observations about the nature of emotion moves the conversation forward.
You seem to conflate the idea of logic itself with that of 'a self-serving rationalization'. You can approach a discussion about empathy and patience using logic or without using logic, just as you can approach a conversation about 'getting what you want from other people' using logic or without using logic. Using logic is completely orthogonal to choices of focus.
What you call "self-serving rationalizations" are a form of logical thinking. I hope I haven't implied that they're exactly the same thing as logic.
Either way, I frankly don't see a problem with "self-serving rationalizations." This article, in the way I read it, shows a particular way to rephrase a situation that would otherwise make you angry, so that it ends up being a win-win situation instead. This isn't even happening at the cost of someone else.
I don't understand what you consider to be so wrong about this article, or about this concept. Is it not enough to just be nice to people, do we have to always have unselfish intentions too?
> I hope I haven't implied that they're exactly the same thing as logic
When you said:
> If you fail to rein in your anger with the idea of empathy or patience, how about using logic?
First, (and possibly not relevant to your question) I did interpret that as implying that the act of (a) using empathy and patience is a mutual exclusive act from (b) using logic. (I often use logic to broaden my viewpoint, which increases my capacity for empathy and patience, in some specific scenario).
More relevant to your question, I also interpreted this as suggesting that 'using logic' was a good characterization of the strategy being advocated by the article. I would disagree. I think 'using logic + embracing a value system + desiring specific results' would be better characterization. For example, if I use logic and a different value system, then I might set aside my anger simply in order to experience greater joy and happiness in the moment, and/or possibly increased ability to have a harmonious interaction with the other party (for the pure satisfaction of it). With other value systems and variation in the specifics of 'desired results', I might logically arrive at courses of action which none of us have mentioned.
> I frankly don't see a problem with "self-serving rationalizations."
Yes. In general, as we are using the phrase, I don't disagree.
> Is it not enough to just be nice to people, do we have to always have unselfish intentions too?
Okay, this could become a semantic quagmire - I'm not sure how to address this briefly. Ultimately, I'm not sure it is possibly to have purely 'unselfish' intentions, as even the desires to see other points of view, to be kind to people, to be patient, are ultimately still 'selfish' in some way. My criticisms here relate to authenticity, and choice of specific values - not whether or not those values align with an (impossible?) idealization of 'unselfishness' (or even more confusingly, a 'degree' of unselfishness). I'm sorry if this is a non-constructive tangent, it can be hard to understand what people mean with all the limitations of language.
> I don't understand what you consider to be so wrong about this article, or about this concept.
I'm curious about the word 'so' in there. It is true that I stated that I agree with the great-grandparent - because I agree with the basic sentiment and the direction of the criticism, not that I agree with the strong language used and the implied strong feelings. I don't think this blog post is the worst thing ever, but I do think (a) there are important missed opportunities here, with respect to exploring deeper and more compelling reasons to widen one's perspective and emotional flexibility in moments of anger, and (b) it does strike me as an overt, unapologetic embrace of self-censor in order to get the direct benefit of some immediate results.
If this blog post really appeals to someone, then they might be particularly selfish or impatient. If that person implements the strategies presented simply in order to have better material results in the interaction (and no other reason), then it seems to me that we have encouraged them to become more fake. Acting civil can have the same short term results as being a better person. I don't want selfish, impatient, aggressive people to get better at faking being civil, esp. while also missing an opportunity for introspection and re-evaluation of their values.
I don't mean this as an indictment of the blog post, just a criticism.
> My criticisms here relate to authenticity, and choice of specific values - [not an] idealization of 'unselfishness'
Sure. So, is it not enough to just be nice to people, must we always be authentic too?
> I don't think this blog post is the worst thing ever
And I don't think it's the best thing ever. Honestly, I don't have much of an attachment to this essay either.
The only specific positive point I see to this essay is giving yet another tool to people who otherwise would fail to express their anger in a proper way. And this parlays into my next point:
> I don't want selfish, impatient, aggressive people to get better at faking being civil
People who experience anger are not necessarily all aggressive people. Aggression is "a behavior where the intention is to harm someone or something."[1] This blog post is about helping people retain their civility in the face of anger and avoid aggression, which I think is something you're in favor of.
It's not "faking being civil," it's just another way to help people be civil. Some people have legitimate issues with how they deal with anger (and aren't necessarily people for which an "introspection and re-evaluation of their values" is obligatory), and I think it's great to give them more tools with which to ease back into society.
I don't like "selfish, impatient, aggressive" (hereinafter referred to as "bad") people either. But angry people aren't necessarily "bad" people, and even then "bad" people have to start somewhere.
Well... think about a glass that's full. When someone bumps it, it spills. What does it spill? Whatever was in it.
When we get bumped, we spill. If we're full of anger or bitterness, we spill anger or bitterness.
If assholes faked politeness, their inner state of mind would not affect people as often. But it still would affect people. What's inside comes out at least some of the time.
Being angry and resentful didn't solve anything. So instead I asked myself "if I don't do this thing I don't like, what's the worst that will happen?". The answer most of the time turned out to be... "nothing."
What remained was what I chose and those things were worth doing whole-heartedly.