I never feel anger without regret.
It’s a simple formula—I lose my temper and disappointment floods in behind it. For a few moments I can believe my indignation is righteous, deserved, justified, healthy. The object of my anger had it coming and, in fact, needed it. Besides, shouldn’t I be allowed to lose it every once in a while? Am I not only human?
That feeling never lasts. Next comes, “What the hell is wrong with me?”
Yesterday, I found myself standing face to face with a student, listening to my voice—as if from outside—berating him for misbehavior. I’m always the same. I posit some possible consequence of the student’s action—someone will be hurt, others will see this action as a model when it is far from it, some disrespect will be inferred and ruin an otherwise warm / fruitful / good relationship. Seriously serious things will seriously happen. I mean it this time.
Sometimes, I’m the person harmed by this misbehavior, but usually not. It is a cause I’m fighting for. I’m acting on behalf of important principles like “You shouldn’t throw shit” or “You are not here now to do what you are doing (moron).”
I’ve heard people describe anger as a normal, if not healthy, emotion. They say repressing anger is sure to upset your mental balance. A person who can’t accommodate the powerful emotions associated with frustration has little hope in our deeply annoying world. And in the realm of knowing thyself, accepting your emotional being is critical. You have to practice communicating anger (without aggression) or redirecting it (without victimizing someone else).
Intellectually, I can accept being mad. I know emotion needs expressing or sublimating. And I know, eventually, all emotion will out. But, as much as I try to practice properly directed but not aggressive anger, my fury never feels right—before, during or, especially, after.
Yesterday, during my principled outrage (it was over throwing shit) the words barely sounded real to me. Later they sounded worse, worthy of the mordant humor my victim may have directed at the ridiculously pompous fool who corrected him. Meanwhile, thinking about the student laughing me off, I was busy with self-loathing.
When I was a child my family called me “the angry bee” because when I became enraged, I lost the power of speech and milled around like a bumper car, buzzing. I can see how a eight-year old hot head could be pretty funny, but nothing made me more angry than being called “the angry bee.”
All my life, I’ve been determined to live down that label, so now I rarely get mad. My students ask occasionally, “Do you even have a temper?” I tell them they don’t want to see it. When I’m mad, I’m mad in both senses of the word.
Though I lose it infrequently, I’m always shocked how little control I seem to have over the timing or intensity of my rage. Afterward, Tybalt is dead, and I am fortune’s fool. I wake to myself again as if I’d been momentarily possessed.
Of course I haven’t. That furious me is me, just a me I run from, a me I desperately want to deny. I hate losing control.
Psychologists will tell you anger may actually arise from a desire for control. You want every moment to be what you want it to be, and when it isn’t, you either swallow the frustration—saving the fury for another time—or—if it is that time—freak out.
I’ve had colleagues who find freaking out cathartic. A former colleague used to talk about “jacking students up” as if it were an academic bloodsport. Me, I can’t help wanting to apologize, not about the cause of my anger—because, well, you really shouldn’t throw shit—but because it isn’t appropriate for me to yell. I’m supposed to be a model adult, and I should be able to express my displeasure firmly but dispassionately…even if, inside, I’m secretly going postal.
Today I did apologize to the student I dressed down. I told him that, though he misbehaved, I should have handled the situation more calmly. Did I do wrong?
Part of me wants to quote Emerson in “Self-Reliance” here, “My kindness must have some edge to it, else it is none.” Am I being too kind? Do I blunt my correction by admitting my own flaws? Can the object of my instruction separate my message—a good one most of the time—from my regret at how I expressed it?
Part of me wants to stick to my guns and not apologize, but the true quotation for the moment might not be Emerson but the children’s taunt, “I’m rubber and you’re glue, bounces off me and sticks to you.” Only… in reverse. I’m glue. It bounces off them. I seldom feel mad without eventually being mad at myself.
I live in fear of that angry bee, awaiting his return, ready to be sorry for his sting.
Filed under: American Life, Anger, Children, Confession, Education, Emerson, Essays, Forgiveness, Human Nature, Identity, Life, Longing, Memory, Musings, Teaching, Thoughts, Work
Actually, I believe that modelling apology is one of the most important modellings there is. Be imperfect and apologize for your part of the imperfection, distinguishing it from the wrong the student did, so maybe he’ll apologize when he’s inappropriate. I am proud to say that through modelling, I now have a husband and two sons who are the best apologizers in the world next to me; and also apology accepters. I’m also just curious what grade you teach? College or high school? Can make a huge difference in how annoying they can get.
I teach 9th graders and juniors. This particular incident was with an athlete I coach. That time seems particularly volatile for me…at the end of the day, outside, with wild adolescents.
Still, I like to think that modelling apology is productive. In any case, I have a couple of good apologizers at home too.
When I was younger I argued with my brother and upset my mom. When I went to apologize to her, she said, “Sometimes saying you’re sorry isn’t enough.” That’s really stuck with me. I didn’t know how to respond, and I’m not sure I know how to respond even now. What she said could be true but isn’t a very healthy perspective. Imagine a world where expressing regret was universally insufficient. How would you live with yourself?
I think saying you’re sorry is very human. Actually, you remind me of myself. I hate showing my anger, and I feel like crap afterwards when I lose my patience. I stay calm, calm, calm, and then wham! I explode.
I’m curious to know what you said to the kid. I bet it wasn’t as bad as you thought it was. When I taught I could throw some real zingers at them. Not very professional, I know. The students are SOOO sensitive underneath their glibness.
I’ve found meditation to help with emotions, but I have to say, anger is the hardest to feel when I’m on my cushion. I can feel anxiety and sadness, doubt, and joy, but anger eludes me. It’s the habit of pushing it down, maybe.
I don’t know whether what I said was terrible, but I heard through “back channels” (my son goes to the school where I teach) people wondered why I was suddenly so “hostile.” “Hostile” is one of his favorite words these days. Boy is it challlenging to have your behavior explained so clinically—almost as bad as being the angry bee.
Thinking zingers is better than using them. The students enjoy zingers too much. They want to pile on, and that’s worse than the behavior that elicited the zinger in the first place. But thinking about zingers probably goes in the “redirected anger” category. No harm in that! Thanks for visiting. —D
I don’t know if you realize this, but you have a gift for touching on things in a way that resonates. I read so many of your posts and think, Me, too. Especially this one. And man, I do have a temper, and I learned that it’s good to fight and it’s OK to be emotional, and yet, I feel so bad afterward. Especially with young people. Sometimes when I’ve gone through one of those events, where I lose myself or control of myself, I wish I weren’t so self-aware. Like I’m two different people, the one who is human and the one who wants to be super-human.
Thank you for your generous comment. My wife tells me I touch on universal experience in my posts, but, well, she’s my wife. After all this time, our experience IS pretty universal from our perspective.
You’re right that anger seems worse with my charges. They project cool but probably bruise more easily than anyone. And some of them want to please you so much—they can be devastated by your anger, thinking you don’t like them anymore. In that situation, I feel particularly low. Self-awareness doesn’t seem to help much in matters of emotion. In my experience, you can’t really convince anyone to feel a certain way, least of all yourself! —D
I completely believe that anger is valid, and normal, and a healthy part of the human psyche… and yet, I’m exactly like you. Except that it’s not regret I feel after… it’s overwhelming guilt and shame. At some level, I believe that I don’t have the right to feel anger, and that if I do, I will be rejected. Argh. The things we absorb early in life and carry with us.
Exactly! I want to go back to the very moment I absorbed my bad psychohabits and figure them all out. I’m not sure it would help though. My suspicion is too many variable contribute to our behavior, including all the dark animals I REALLY don’t want to think about! —D
D ” I never feel anger without regret.” This one rings so true for me also, and often I wish I had the capacity for the words that passed my lips would be able to be reeled back in reverse, because anger can make me feel so ugly and unjust and plain wrong. It is the possibility of giving hurt that is so bad a side of anger. And yet, teenagers can project such an impenetrable shell, as if wht has been said to them can be waved off like a mildly annoying insect, and it is this imperturable aspect of their behaviour that can lead to a barrage of language from a teacher, which once uttered can lead to so much tension in a classroom. On the other hand, we all had to learn to cope with having people say things to us in ways which may have disturbed our equanimity, and teachers, and other types of professionals who deal with people are only all too human. When I taught, sometimes my reaction forced me to leave my post and withdraw rather than blurt out what I really felt and yes I did fail also to contain my anger. I hated being in that king of position. G
When my kids were young, if I felt myself getting really angry, I gave myself a time-out. When my kids told the other parents that I got time-outs too, I think the parents believed my wife was responsible for dispensing them. I’m sure there have been times she WISHED she could give me a time-out!
Generally speaking, getting away and/or counting helps me.
I wonder sometimes if what really bothers me is losing the esteem of the students I’m working with. I can’t stand to fall in their estimation, and I’m not sure that’s healthy all the time. Sometimes, it’s my job to correct, and you can’t expect to be loved when that’s your job. I believe I can be rational and calm about it though, and that something else is wrong when I can’t be. Thanks for your thoughtful comment. —D