Taking Responsibility for Anger

What does an angry adult have in common with a teething baby? Both need something to chew on.

Angry people imagine they get angry in response to their life experience. People disappoint, life takes unexpected turns. Suffering happens, and an angry person reacts, telling himself/herself that everything would be okay if only unpleasant or unfair things could be avoided for a stretch of time.

A teething baby doesn’t chew on things because those particular things need chewing. A teething baby has to chew on something, and will make use of anything around–fingers, toys, whatever. Similarly, an angry person needs a steady diet of life events that make her “right” and someone else “wrong.” Whereas teething babies naturally grow out of this phase, this isn’t so for angry adults. There is no set of “anger teeth” that will finally grow in, making life more palatable. Rather, a habitually angry person must ultimately recognize his tendency to get himself into self-defeating situations, which then become a self-fulfilling prophecy.