When you are angry……..

What do we generally do when we are angry?

They say what distinguishes us from animals is the fact that we have emotions and that’s where we are blessed. Tell someone who has lost his/her ‘near and dear one’ recently or a guy going through a heart break and he would tell you he prefers being without the so called differentiating element and being less “blessed” so as to say.

Among all the emotions, anger is one such emotion which varies from age to age and situation to situation. While at some level, all of these emotions can be curtailed, they can never be nipped away in totality, unless the person is brain dead or even better, from another planet. You have so many of these channels sprouting across everyday which focuses on all what the so called Swamiji’s say. All of these so called guru’s spend hours listing out ways & means of curbing anger and the grave necessity of curbing the emotion. I have no doubts about the latter but what can men who walk around in the same attire, eating only fruits and claiming to have no relationships of any kind with mankind barring a self-imposed “Lord-Disciple” relationship know about life’s grave complexities.

The bottom line is that no man can ever kill his emotions altogether but he can curb the same through 2 simple steps:

• Being aware of his anger and what makes him anger
• Devising his own methods to tackle anger

People react in various ways to anger. Some of them jump the line by a mile and end up behind the bars but I would focus my article on “within the mile” anger that sometimes is great fun to be a witness to.

The last day when Sachin got out, I was going through my usual bout of anger and venting the same through some fiery words on my lack of fortune. My mom came up with her usual comments- “Anger is a reflection of your culture and it is not something one should have.” It left me wondering!!! Does anger really stem from ones upbringing? It does abate under circumstances around you, but it definitely is something one is born with. Some let it control their lives while others control it to lead their lives…..

It all starts early…..

If you have seen an infant grow up, you would notice how the little one gets angry when she is having a tummy ache or more so when her mother is feeding her porridge, but not at the pace she needs it to be…

As the kid grows up, he is angry at his parents for not getting him a toy or letting him watch his favourite cartoon for that much longer…

The point is that all of us get angry and this is a part of our system as much as a sweating and tears are….

Many of us device our own methods to control it. But, you can tell without batting an eyelid that it does not work with some people!!! Remember the famous incident of a boxer biting his opponent’s ear off, just a day after he claimed to have put in place a plan to channel his anger into positive energy in the boxing ring.

And then nearer to home, there is always a certain Mr.Sreesanth. The rumour mills have it that our benevolent captain went to the extent of telling him that I can’t pick him in the team as I would need to spend more of my time in the match referee’s room than focusing on the game. His ways have never changed since then.

Let me get back to focus on some of the ways in which many of us control our anger:

• My little nephew jumps up and down in anger and then runs into the loo to attend to nature’s call
• My mom rushes into the bathroom and switches the tap on
• While many of us start crying, some of us laugh ourselves out of anger
• Most men yell at the women in their life to vent their frustration
• Some others run to loose calories
• Some bribe god in the hope of better times
• Some pray to god while others search for a prey
• Some call friends while others reach out to them
• Some brood over their miseries while others drink themselves into sleep
• Some of us order some of the finest cuisine to vent all our anger
• While one of my closest friends drives (car) his way out of anger, another friend of mine drives everyone else into anger
• Some of us keep swapping channels through our remote.

I remember during my teen years I had this incident when I was angry at my sister for not giving me permission to go out late and in that anger while I was fuming inside, I drew my hands towards the switch on my left without noticing that it was open. I had a shock and felt flat on my head. All I could think of for the night was a bad headache that I had and could hardly even think of the anger or the cause of it….

What I am looking for, is your views on how did you react when you are really angry? How do you control anger and channelize your energy positively, if there is something like that (Request you to please refrain from any philosophical ideas) A good response from all of you will make for an interesting thread to read with various ways of how people deal with anger……………..