Why are We so Angry?

Last summer we were visiting friends in a small town in Pennsylvania and during our visit we went to a town arts and crafts fair. The small town had blocked off Main Street and it was lined with booths of all different kinds, food, clothing, etc. So the people would walk down one side of the street and up the other to check out each booth. As we were walking I noticed a woman walking in the opposite direction with a unique T-shirt. She was probably in her mid-forties and on the front of her shirt was a large closed fist with the middle finger sticking out. My initial thought was that she was certainly sending a message and that she must be angry, at everything, all the time.

Marie Miguel in her post states that “It seems like everywhere you turn, someone is angry at something. You may wonder why is everyone angry all the time.”

So that’s the question “Why is everyone so angry?”

According to Jennifer Graham she stated that “In a survey conducted by Esquire and NBC News last year, roughly half of Americans said they’re angrier than they used to be, and nearly 7 out of 10 said they’re angered by something in the news at least once a day. The National Institutes of Health says more than 16 million Americans have a condition called intermittent explosive disorder, in which people get angry out of proportion with the circumstance.”

“It’s a huge problem, and it’s a growing problem,” said R. Douglas Fields of Bethesda, Maryland, author of “Why We Snap, Understanding the Rage Circuit in Your Brain.”

Anger is a problem and it can be very damaging.

Anger can hurt us

One problem is that it hurts the person who gets angry. According to Graham “In a fraction of a second, a flash of anger causes physiological changes that negatively affect blood pressure, heart rate and digestion, and chronic anger is associated with heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems, according to research published in the medical journal Circulation. Persistent anger can destroy marriages and friendships, threaten employment and erode our capacity to engage in the reasoned, thoughtful arguments on which our democracy depends. It’s a three-pronged problem with spiritual, mental and physical components.”

Anger can hurt others

But it can also hurt someone else if the anger turns violent such as with road rage.

One day a few weeks ago before the virus I was going to the store and stopped at a traffic light. At the light there were three lanes and each marked clearly. The right was for turning right, the center lane for going straight and the left lane for turning left. I was in the left lane and as I was turning the car in the center lane also turned left. He felt I was cutting him off and his anger showed as he passed me in a rage and showed me the same sign that the previous woman had on her T-shirt.

Road rage can be deadly. Also from Graham “Many of the things people are angry about these days are relatively minor, even though the outcomes can be horrific, such as incidents of road rage, like one that occurred recently in Pennsylvania when a man fatally shot an 18-year-old driver he clashed with while both drivers were trying to merge into traffic.”

So again why is everyone so angry?

Anger can be used for financial gain

In doing the research for this post I came across an interesting perspective. Some people use the emotion of anger for personal or financial gain. I can understand the personal gain but financial?..

Charles Duhigg from “The Atlantic” said “The emotion of anger was being used by debt collectors to get their money. The trick they were teaching was to use anger strategically. They had it as a formula: when to fake anger, when to cool down, when to give people a bit of forgiveness. Even when the debtors on the other end of the line sounded friendly, the collectors were trained to pretend they were angry at them. One supervisor said that in some instances, you have to slam ’em. I slam ’em against the wall. He explained that callers needed to hear a hostile tone, something that said, I want the payment today! Express mail! The point wasn’t to intimidate the debtors into paying—the strategy was more sophisticated than that. As soon as a debtor started screaming back, the collector would switch tactics and become soothing and accommodating. The idea was, once you get them angry and aroused, you need to deliver catharsis, a sense of relief. That’s going to make them more likely to pay up,”

I also had a similar incident several years ago, probably in the early 1990’s. I had filed my tax return and didn’t expect much back but a few weeks later I received a notice from the IRS stating that I owed them $1,500 and if I had any questions to call a specific number. So I called the number and it was hard to get through but I eventually did and got to talk to an agent. I was on the phone for 30 minutes and it was a very unique experience. He called me a liar and that I was trying to submit a false return. He said that no one could have donated as much as I did to charity with my income and I just needed to pay up. I told him I had all my receipts and would be glad to send him a copy. But he didn’t want the receipts and got increasingly angrier and said he didn’t have to waste his time by talking to me as he could be home cooking hot dogs on the grill. Again after trying to anger me he hung up. But I was not going to hang up my end and after a few minutes he came back on the line with a completely different attitude. He told me to contact this other person and she would take care of me. So I did just that and after checking into my situation she said that my itemized deductions were zeroed out in their computer and after completing her analysis she said they owed me $1,500. But I knew she was wrong and after about six months and several calls later she agreed that my original return was correct.

Anger is a response to a threat

Anger and sudden aggression in response to a threat originates in the unconscious parts of the brain, “because, in response to a threat, conscious deliberation would be too slow,” said Fields from Bethesda.

In addition to reacting to perceived threats to our physical safety, the brain also reacts to perceived threats of social status, self-respect and autonomy, said Professor Michael Potegal, a behavioral neuroscientist and clinical psychologist at the University of Minnesota. “Anger is also characteristic of people with borderline personality disorder who become angry when they feel socially unsupported. Most notably, people with narcissistic personality disorder become enraged at any public criticism because it undercuts their core belief that everyone else thinks they are great,” Potegal said.

Weview our situation from a self-centered perspective. Our view is that someone else is causing us harm or attacks our ego. We view our life and our own worth from how we see how other people are treating us. But the Christian life and the example that Christ gave us is just the opposite. We need to analyze our response and not the behavior of the other person. I think this is one of the hardest commands that God has given us. To return good for evil. Not to respond as an act of revenge but as an act of love when our lives are not threatened.

Our culture tells us to stick up for our rights and they applaud us when we do. Because it’s what we deserve, correct!!

So people get angry when they feel they are being discriminated against or being disrespected. This can be against them personally or as a group that they associate with.

We could be disrespected in a number of different ways; age, race, physical appearance, handicap, religion, or personality. Certainly there are others and I could describe each one of these in detail but I think you get the picture. (smiles)

A few years ago I was out of work at age 58. At that age it was difficult in getting a new job and it took almost a year to land one that was just part time. I was an electrical engineer and recently a pastor. At one job interview for pastor I was told that they would not hire me because I was did not have a charismatic personality. They said I would drive people away from the church. I was certainly well qualified. I had experience as an executive pastor, a master’s degree in theology, and had served on the church leadership board of three different churches for over 20 years. But I wasn’t charismatic. (sad) I know I am boring but that was a stretch. (smiles)

But as Christians our focus should not be on the behavior of the person who is treating us poorly but on our response. We should be wise and use those opportunities to show Christ’s love in at least three ways:

1. Sometimes we should just overlook it. Proverbs 19:11 “A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense” (NIV)
2. Sometimes we need to return good. Romans 12:21 “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”(ESV)
3. But always we at least need to pray for them. 1 Peter 3:9 “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” (NIV)

On point 3 John MacArthur says “The blessing that a Christian is to give to the reviler includes finding ways to serve him, praying for his salvation or spiritual progress, expressing thankfulness for him, speaking well of him, and desiring his wellbeing.”

Through the offense God could use it to build a relationship that may eventually lead them to Christ. I don’t always get it right but I did pray for the road rage guy. (smiles)

I hope this post will help you in dealing with your own anger. Even the best of us will fail in this area at times.

Proverbs 16:32 “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.