Self-Control

 

On 2/15/2016 Rabbi Joseph Telushskin narrated a Prager U video, entitled, Anger Management. I took notes and then will respond to what he said.

 

Telushskin: “Do you wish you had better control over your temper? Does your family so wish? Unfair or excessive anger is a major cause of marital strife, fighting between parents and children, and in the workplace.”

 

My response: I think it is natural to feel angry at times, and often the feeling is justified. What the good rabbi is counseling is that we go ahead and feel the feeling, but we need to control ourselves so that we do not lash out of proportion emotionally, verbally, or heaven forbid by violently attacking the person that infuriated us. We will have the anger felt, the impulse to lash out but it is enough to say you have made me very angry by your inconsiderate word/behavior—at least that is the ideal, but we can work at it and get better at it.

 

This pattern, where we feel what we feel, and perhaps have a powerful almost irresistible impulse or temptation to attack the person that offended us; we feel what we feel and are tempted to misbehave verbally or physically, but we practice self-control by not allowing unjust, immoral, excessive, or maybe even illegal reaction representing the anger felt, be how we behave immediately afterwards.

 

It is not immoral to feel what we feel and be tempted as tempted, but immorality and personal blame is incurred by us as we indulge ourselves and act out how we feel and how we desire to act.

 

We are born fell, but the moral adult still feels as he feels and has the same destructive or impure impulses, but he is a good person, and, of his own free will, wills not to act upon his base natural responses that he is tempted to act out. He can control his temper and his words, and as a higher functioning moral person, most of the time, he can control how he acts, though angry at the person triggering the anger.

 

Telushskin: “Sometimes anger is responsible for more than just tension. Road rage is implicated in hundreds of deaths and thousands of accidents each year. Anger is not just always wrong. Sometimes it is absolutely necessary. There is evil in the world and sometimes in our own lives.  if that did not make us angry neither individuals or nations would ever oppose it. Would you want to live in a world where no one but victims got angry at rapists, terrorists and murderers?”

 

My response: I agree that there is such a thing a righteous anger, but it should not be vigilantism but legal justice against perpetrators.

 

Telushskin: “But that is not the sort of anger I am talking about. I am talking about another type of anger that occurs in our daily lives and to those around us. The hot-tempered say: ‘I can’t control my anger.’ But that is not so.

 

For example, you walk down the street and a robber approaches you, pulls a gun and wants your wallet. Do you, though angry, shout at him. No, you speak quietly and respectfully to save your life. So we can control our tempers when we want to.

 

Anger management classes help but I offer you one rule almost guaranteed that you will never say anything that leads to an irrevocable break or a permanent hurt in your relationship with another person.

 

Here it is: ‘No matter how angry you get, restrict the expression of your anger to the incident that provoked it.’ This means when some has done something wrong and has hurt you, express anger for what they do but only for that incident that provoked it.”

 

My response: This is sound advise: stay focused on the specific offense, and, even then be angry, but to not blow like a geyser, and potentially hurt someone.

 

Telushskin: “ Do not make statements to them, stating accusations with always or never. This sweeping accusations force the other purpose to be defensive because you are lying. They are not always bad and that is an untrue statement. If someone has offended, you does not give you the right to lie about them.

 

Another destructive consequence: People think that what you say when you are angry is what you really think. Now it might be but usually it isn’t what you think. It is usually what you think at that moment. We all do this, but once said, it is out there, and the other person cannot forget what was said.

 

A wise medieval philosopher said: ‘I can take back the word I didn’t say, but I can’t take back the words I did say.’

 

Can you practice this rule? For some it is easier, for some it is harder, but you can do it. Stay focused and exercise self-control.

 

The rule: ‘No matter how angry you get, restrict the expression of the anger to the issue that provoked it.’”