Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (22 page)

Another distortion characteristic of anger-generating thoughts is
mind reading
—you invent motives that explains to
your
satisfaction why the other person did what he or she did. These hypotheses are frequently erroneous because they will not describe the actual thoughts and perceptions that motivated the other person. Due to your indignation, it may not occur to you to check out what you are saying to yourself.

Common explanations you might offer for the other person’s objectionable behavior would be “He has a mean streak”; “She’s unfair”; “He’s just like that”; “She’s stupid”; “They’re bad kids”; and so forth. The problem with these so-called explanations is that they are just additional labels that don’t really provide any valid information. In fact, they are downright misleading.

Here’s an example: Joan got hot under the collar when her husband told her he’d prefer to watch the Sunday football game on TV rather than go with her to a concert. She felt miffed because she told herself, “He doesn’t love me! He always has to get his own way! It’s unfair!”

The problem with Joan’s interpretation is that it is not valid. He
does
love her, he doesn’t always get his way, and he isn’t intentionally being “unfair.” On this particular Sunday the Dallas Cowboys are locking spurs with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he
really
wants to see that game! There’s no way he’s going to want to get dressed and go to a concert.

When Joan thinks about her husband’s motivations in such an illogical fashion, she creates two problems for the price of one. She has to put up with the self-created illusion that she’s unloved in addition to missing out on his company at the concert.

The third form of distortion that leads to anger is
magnification
. If you exaggerate the importance of the negative event, the intensity and duration of your emotional reaction may get blown up out of all proportion. For example, if you are waiting for a late bus and you have an important
appointment, you might tell yourself, “I can’t take this!” Isn’t that a slight exaggeration? Since you are taking it, you
can
take it, so why tell yourself you
can’t
? The inconvenience of waiting for the bus is bad enough without creating additional discomfort and self-pity in this way. Do you really want to fume like that?

Inappropriate
should
and
shouldn’t
statements represent the fourth type of distortion that feeds your anger. When you find that some people’s actions are not to your liking, you tell yourself they “shouldn’t” have done what they did, or they “should have” done something they failed to do. For example, suppose you register at a hotel and discover they lost the record of your reservation, and now there are no rooms available. You furiously insist, “This
shouldn’t
have happened! Those stupid goddam clerks!”

Does the actual deprivation cause your anger? No. The deprivation can only create a sense of loss, disappointment, or inconvenience. Before you can feel anger, you must necessarily make the interpretation you are
entitled
to get what you want in this situation. Consequently, you see the goof-up on your reservation as an injustice. This perception leads to your feeling angry.

So what’s wrong with that? When you say the clerks
shouldn’t
have made a mistake, you are creating unnecessary frustration for yourself. It’s unfortunate your reservation was lost, but it’s highly unlikely anyone intended to treat you unjustly, or that the clerks are especially stupid. But they
did
make an error. When you insist on perfection from others, you will simply make
yourself
miserable and become immobilized. Here’s the rub: Your anger probably won’t cause a room to appear magically, and the inconvenience of going to another hotel will be far less than the misery you inflict on yourself by brooding for hours or days about the lost reservation.

Irrational should statements rest on your assumption that you are
entitled
to instant gratification at all times. So on those occasions when you don’t get what you want, you go into panic or rage because of your attitude that unless you
get X, you will either die or be tragically deprived of joy forever (X can represent love, affection, status, respect, promptness, perfection, niceness, etc.). This insistence that your wants be gratified at all times is the basis for much self-defeating anger. People who are anger-prone often formulate their desires in moralistic terms such as this: If I’m nice to someone, they
should
be appreciative.

Other people have free will, and often think and act in ways that aren’t to your liking. All of your insistence that they must fall in line with your desires and wishes will not produce this result. The opposite is more often true. Your attempts to coerce and manipulate people with angry demands most often will alienate and polarize them and make them much less likely to want to please you. This is because other people don’t like being controlled or dominated any more than you do. Your anger will simply limit the creative possibilities for problem solving.

The perception of unfairness or injustice is the ultimate cause of most, if not all, anger. In fact, we could define anger as the emotion which corresponds in a one-to-one manner to your belief that you are being treated unfairly.

Now we come to a truth you may see either as a bitter pill or an enlightening revelation. There is no such thing as a universally accepted concept of fairness and justice. There is an undeniable
relativity
of fairness, just as Einstein showed the relativity of time and space. Einstein postulated—and it has since been experimentally validated—there is no “absolute time” that is standard throughout the universe. Time can appear to “speed up” and “slow down,” and is relative to the frame of reference of the observer. Similarly, “absolute fairness” does not exist. “Fairness” is relative to the observer, and what is fair to one person can appear quite unfair to another. Even social rules and moral strictures which are accepted within one culture can vary substantially in another. You can protest that this is not the case and insist that your own personal moral system is universal, but it just ain’t so!

Here’s proof: When a lion devours a sheep, is this unfair?
From the point of view of the sheep, it is
unfair
; he’s being viciously and intentionally murdered with no provocation. From the point of view of the lion, it
is fair
. He’s hungry, and this is the daily bread he feels entitled to. Who is “right”? There is
no ultimate or universal answer
to this question because there’s no “absolute fairness” floating around to resolve the issue. In fact, fairness is simply a perceptual interpretation, an abstraction, a self-created concept. How about when
you
eat a hamburger? Is this “unfair”? To you, it’s not. From the point of view of the cow, it certainly is (or was)! Who’s “right”? There is no ultimate “true” answer.

In spite of the fact that “absolute fairness” does not exist, personal and social moral codes are important and useful. I am not recommending anarchy. I am saying that moral statements and judgments about fairness are stipulations, not objective facts. Social moral systems, such as the Ten Commandments, are essentially sets of rules that groups decide to abide by. One basis for such systems is the enlightened self-interest of each member of the group. If you fail to act in a manner that takes into account the feelings and interests of others you are likely to end up less happy because sooner or later they will retaliate when they notice you are taking advantage of them.

A system which defines “fairness” varies in its generality depending on how many people accept it. When a rule of behavior is unique to one person, other people may see it as eccentric. An example of this would be my patient who washes her hands ritualistically over fifty times a day to “set things right” and to avoid extreme feelings of guilt and anxiety. When a rule is nearly universally accepted it becomes part of a general moral code and may become a part of the body of law. The prohibition against murder is an example. Nevertheless, no amount of general acceptance can make such systems “absolute” or “ultimately valid” for everyone under all circumstances.

Much everyday anger results when we confuse our own personal wants with general moral codes. When you get
mad at someone and you claim that they are acting “unfairly,” more often than not what is really going on is that they are acting “fairly” relative to a set of standards and a frame of reference that differs from yours. Your assumption that they are “being unfair” implies that your way of looking at things is universally accepted. For this to be the case, everyone would have to be the same. But we aren’t. We all think differently. When you overlook this and blame the other person for being “unfair” you are unnecessarily polarizing the interaction because the other person will feel insulted and defensive. Then the two of you will argue fruitlessly about who is “right.” The whole dispute is based on the illusion of “absolute fairness.”

Because of your relativity of fairness, there is a logical fallacy that is inherent in your anger. Although you feel convinced the other guy is acting
unfairly
, you must realize he is only acting unfairly relative to
your
value system. But he is operating from
his
value system, not yours. More often than not, his objectionable action will seem quite fair and reasonable to him. Therefore, from his point of view—which is his only possible basis for action—what he does is “fair.” Do you want people to act fairly? Then you should
want
him to act as he does even though you
dislike
what he does, since he is acting fairly within his system! You can work to try to convince him to change his attitudes and ultimately modify his standards and his actions, and in the meantime you can take steps to make certain you won’t suffer as a result of what he does. But when you tell yourself, “He’s acting unfairly,” you are fooling yourself and you are chasing a mirage!

Does this mean that all anger is inappropriate and that the concepts of “fairness” and “morality” are useless because they are relative? Some popular writers do give this impression. Dr. Wayne Dyer writes:

This position represents the opposite extreme, and is an example of all-or-nothing thinking. It’s like saying—throw your watches and clocks away because Einstein showed that absolute time does not exist. The concepts of time and fairness are socially
useful
even though they do not exist in an absolute sense.

In addition to this contention that the concept of fairness is an illusion, Dr. Dyer seems to suggest that anger is useless:

Again, his arguments seem to be based on cognitive distortion. To say anger serves
no
purpose is just more all-or-nothing thinking, and to say it never works is an overgeneralization. Actually, anger can be adaptive and productive in certain situations. So the real question is not “Should I or should I not feel anger?” but rather “Where will I draw the line?”

The following two guidelines will help you to determine when your anger is productive and when it is not. These two criteria can help you synthesize what you are learning and to evolve a meaningful personal philosophy about anger:

Example: You are playing basketball, and a fellow on the other team elbows you in the stomach intentionally so as to upset you and get you off your game. You may be able to channel your anger productively so you will play harder and win. So far your anger is
adaptive.
^*
Once the game is over, you may no longer want that anger. Now it’s
maladaptive
.

Suppose your three-year-old son runs mindlessly into the street and risks his life. In this case he is
not
intentionally inflicting harm. Nevertheless, the angry mode in which you express yourself may be adaptive. The emotional arousal in your voice conveys a message of alarm and importance that might not come across if you were to deal with him in a calm, totally objective manner. In both these examples, you
chose
to be angry, and the magnitude and expression of the emotion were under your control. The
adaptive and positive
effects of your anger differentiate it from hostility, which is impulsive and uncontrolled and leads to aggression.

Suppose you are enraged about some senseless violence you read about in the paper. Here the act seems clearly hurtful and immoral. Nevertheless, your anger may not be adaptive if—as is usually the case—there is nothing you plan to do about it. If, in contrast, you choose to help the
victims or begin a campaign to fight crime in some way, your anger might again be adaptive.