Anger Is A Choice

           Anger is an emotion we all experience. My spiritual and secular study, as well as my own life experience, has taught me of the reality of the fact that anger is not considered a primary emotion or instinctive response. It is a choice.  Many people, myself included, have at one time or another felt that anger is a primary emotion as it is the first response we have to negative things that happen to us. Everybody feels anger at different times, to varying degrees. Indeed, this opinion is so common in modern society that new programs are created in anger management, and articles written on the upsides of anger.

    In his blog entitled “Anger Problems: A Smokescreen for Fear-Shame Phobia” posted in January 2009, Dr. Stosny broadly depicts anger problems as "a smokescreen for fear-shame phobia." The problem of anger is of vital importance not only in our daily emotional life, but in the genesis of most mental disorders, violence, spiritual development, and creativity. Anger is considered by some psychotherapists to be a secondary rather than primary emotion because anger, like anxiety, is a reaction to something threatening to the physical and/or psychological, spiritual or existential integrity of the individual. 

    Additionally, in an October 2007 conference talk entitled “Be Slow to Anger”, President Gordon B. Hinckley taught: “It is when we become angry that we get into trouble. The road rage that affects our highways is a hateful expression of anger. I dare say that most of the inmates in our prisons are there because they did something when they were angry. In their wrath they swore, they lost control of themselves, and terrible things followed, even murder. There were moments of offense followed by years of regret”. I found this true in my life as I control my temper, put a smile in my face, which erases anger, speak out with words of love and peace, appreciation, and respect. I have lesser or no regrets on the way I handle my emotions. I have also seen other people whose marriages and family relationships were preserved. They are much happier. They do the greater good. They feel a sense of peace and that is wonderful.

It is true that this phenomenon is prevalent around us, it’s continued acceptance of the people who believe so does not negate all the study and evidence we have learned from both spiritual and secular sources that we tend to resort to anger in order to protect ourselves from or cover up other vulnerable feelings and that a primary feeling is what is felt immediately before we feel anger.  

Without a doubt, I have come to realize over the years that anger is not a primary emotion. We should not believe that we are victims of an emotion that we cannot control. We can choose not to become angry. A proverb in the Old Testament states: “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32).