Managing Anger

Learn to muzzle your pet peeves!

"Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret."
– Ambrose Bierce

Many years ago, I worked with an extremely unpleasant man who irritated me relentlessly. Because he was much older than I and had seniority at work, I kept my feelings to myself. Then one day, he said something fairly innocuous – something that at any other time wouldn't have caused me to raise an eyebrow. I turned around and let him have it – sounding off for a good five minutes, in front of other employees, no less, about just exactly what I thought of him.

You may think this experience disqualifies me to write about anger management, but in fact, it taught me an important lesson: Anger is a perfectly normal human emotion. It only becomes a problem when we don't know how to handle it in a healthy, constructive way. And surprisingly few of us do. That's because in many families and cultures, we're taught to corral our negative emotions. Women, in particular, are expected to be polite. Salespeople are taught that the customer is always right. And many children, students and low-level employees are supposed to kowtow to their superiors and not make waves.

But isn't it a good idea to keep the peace, you might ask? The answer is, it depends on the situation. Appropriate anger in the face of injustice is what propelled people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi to fight for important social reforms. Unexpressed anger at a spouse or co-worker can turn inward and lead to depression or high blood pressure. What's more, anger can lead to passive-aggression (behavior expressing resentment in an unassertive way) which, as in the example above, can pave the way for a meltdown that takes both parties by surprise.

In short, it's better to learn how to manage anger than to try to ignore or avoid it – or to allow it to explode. To take control of your anger, remember the acronym: C-A-L-M.