I have two enemies in life, both of my own making - anger and worry.
When I am tested by circumstance, I sometimes revert to old, less sophisticated modes of dealing with these two adversaries. The last few weeks, for example, have been difficult for my family. All of us have been sick, some for weeks. Our youngest dog died. Our beloved nanny retired and spent her last day with us yesterday. In the face of these challenges I noticed myself relapse into reflexive anger and obsessive worry. How you behave in difficult times defines you, so I am disappointed that I might turn into a hand-wringer with a short fuse when tested.
While I have written about anger at length and have taken great pains to temper its influence on my behavior, I still struggle with low frustration tolerance. The other day I told the hard boiled egg I was peeling to fuck off.
I can also be an avid worrier even when the getting is good. If you look closely enough, the world offers plenty of triggers for spinning up worry, and I eat them for breakfast. In the United States, there looms a potentially calamitous debt crisis and the specter of internal conflict. Across the globe there are plenty of ruinous conflicts just waiting for the US to get entangled in, most recently between Israel and Iran.
If that isn’t enough existential dread for you, read AI 2027.
If I am to lead a life on my terms, it follows that I must gain control over anger and worry. These menaces threaten my family’s quality of life, are already at our doorstep and are within my control. What battle could be more relevant to me?
I can worry about saving the world after I save myself from my bad habits.
But how can this be done?
In a previous deep dive in my journal, I tried to design a life based on answering the question of “what makes me happy?” - excluding influence of any ties that bind me to my Wife, my children, my family and friends. In other words, if I was flying solo, what specifically would bring me the most happiness? If I prioritized that which makes me happier, I would have less use for anger and worry. I struggled, though, to separate myself from those roles - husband, father, brother, son, friend - not just because they bind me, but because they define me.
Eventually I found it more appropriate to ask, “what do I want?”
So I started there. What do I want? In the face of all the challenges that life brings, of all the potential causes for worry, of all the possible provocations to anger, what do I really want?
I want to be free from needless worry.
I want an insanely high threshold for anger.
I want sufficient financial security for my family such that we may anticipate and swiftly respond to threats to our freedom.
I want the physical health and strength to bring these desires to life.
“Who do you think you are?” my brain retorts. “Everyone wants these things. What makes you so deserving?” Previous versions of me would halt here, auto-flagellate for being selfish and move on.
Not this time. The cost of rolling over is too high and the potential upside is too great. How fulfilling would it be to close the gap between who I am now and the equanimous, resolute, strong human being I want to be! To wield enough power to meaningfully protect my family. To exemplify to my children what it means to be calm and magnanimous, regardless of circumstances.
Such loftiness is romantic, but to make these desires happen I need to translate them into something practical. Sublimating anger and worry are the most immediately accessible of these goals and increase the likelihood of me achieving the others. So let’s start there and precisely define terms.
What is worry?
Worry is perseverative inaction (I know, I made up perseverative). It is the thought haplessly repeated long after its inciting stimulus has ceased, without taking any concrete steps toward resolution. It is “paying a debt you don’t owe,” as has been attributed to Mark Twain.
What is anger?
Anger is reactive aggression. It is any behavior with the goal of dominating another person or thoughtlessly discharging displeasure. When angry, you might feel like you are provoked, but you are actually complicit in allowing its flames to spread.
These are my enemies. Putting them to death in my mind would bring me closer to the avatar of who I could and should be. But as I have learned, it is not as simple as not getting angry or not worrying. Therefore, I thought inverting these monsters into their more desirable opposites would clarify a path forward.
If worry is perseverative inaction, then its opposite would be decisive action. It sounds cliché, but decisive action is exactly what I should strive for, because there is no beneficial outcome for runaway worry. Deliberately choosing a path forward in the face of the unsettling must be better. I remember one surgeon in medical school speaking of decision making in the operating room, “sometimes wrong, always decisive.” If SHTF! would you rather someone you depend on paralyzed in dismay or striving for a path forward, even inelegantly? In another instance an intensivist drilled the mantra into our heads, “doctors make decisions!” I have considerable practice making life or death decisions for other human beings with little or no information as an emergency medicine physician. Why couldn’t I manifest that decisiveness in my own life?
If anger is provoked aggression, then its opposite would be affective neutrality. Stay with me, I can explain my logic.
At first, I struggled to find anger’s opposite. I began with “equanimity,” but it felt more like a destination or state of being than a practical path forward. I grappled with “equanimity,” reshaping it into “cognitive neutrality,” but its computational tone couldn’t convey the emotiveness I sought to control. So I settled on “affective neutrality.” That is, to strive for an outward air of steadiness and calm, even if I am churning beneath the surface. Again, when all hell breaks loose in the emergency department, it is my responsibility to act forthrightly, especially in the face of the unfair, the catastrophic, the harrowing - which often occur together. Why couldn’t I act similarly when all of my kids need something different at the same time?
My terms are defined. Worry is perseverative inaction, which is bad. Decisive action is the antidote, and is good. Anger is reactive aggression, which is bad. It’s desirable opposite is affective neutrality, which is good.
So how am I practicing my contrived little proto-virtues?
Again, I have Viktor Frankl to thank for inspiring the first step, which happens to be the same for responding to both anger and worry:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Responding to Worry
I allow myself 10 minutes to worry. After 10 minutes of perseverative inaction, I force a pause - I take a deep, weighty breath, drink a glass of water or stare at a distant object for 30 seconds. A deliberate break from consternation to reset. Then, I ask myself, “is this in my control?” If the answer is “no,” then I move on. Done. If the answer is “yes,” then I ask, “what is the simplest, most immediate, concrete step I can take toward the solution?” Then, I take that step.
Responding to Anger
“If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.” - Epictetus
When someone or something angers me, and I recognize that I am provoked into aggression, I force a pause. I stop, take a deep, weighty breath and force a smile (even if its juxtaposition in the fight is uncomfortable). I attempt to respond minimally, slowly and at low volume.
I try to keep Rumi’s three gates in mind:
“Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?”
These are new behaviors that I have come up with, for better or worse, on my own. As with any new habit, they are sometimes difficult to make rote. I am demonstrably mediocre at each of these little automatisms, just ask my Wife, but I am trying. The world needs me at my best. The sooner I master these meager ~30 second skills, the sooner and better I can serve it. Perhaps they might serve you well too.
^ I could use pointers, so please consider commenting what works for you or where you might improve on my scheme. Thanks again for reading. - PG
