I’ve spent a lot of time angry today and the previous few days. There’s a lot of schoolwork and cleaning that I just resent, and I think that has been the source of my anger.

It’s odd how detached I can sometimes be from my emotions. At first, I recognized that I was angry, but I wasn’t quite sure why. Then, in the morning I saw a pile of dishes and I said, “Grrr.” I knew that living in filth was making me angry.

The problem with being angry is that it’s hard to compartmentalize. You react angrily to other things.

I’m going to pull this quote from Blackburn’s Ruling Passions out of context: “It would be tempting to say that if the thought of an object causes such responses, then this is what it is for it to be the object of an emotion. But this is not quite right. I may think of you and become angry. But it does not follow that it is you I am angry at. Thinking of you may remind me of the party where I met you, and this may make me angry for some quite different reason. … It is not the fact that you cause my anger …, however directly or indirectly, that makes it true that I am angry … at you. What does make it you that I am angry with is the fact that my anger is directed at you, or in other words, that I would be inclined to vent it upon you or to blame you for something, at least in the absence of other inhibitory mechanisms.”

It made me think about how I was angry at things that did not directly motivate my anger. I mean, think about a grouchy person as your bank teller. He may act grouchy towards you, but it doesn’t mean that he is mad at you. In that same situation, I’ve thought, “He must be having a bad day.” When you’re having a bad day, you may act miserably in contexts that aren’t the source of your anger.

Anger can take on its own life and become decoupled from what you were originally angry at. It’ll make you snap at people you care about, even though they did nothing to make you angry. So now I was that person “having a bad day” and being a general grouch.

I don’t want to be that kind of person, so I’m going to do my best to stop being angry in the first place.

Last night, I did an inventory of the main things that were making me angry: the filth and schoolwork. I’ve been doing a lot of complaining when it comes to both. Constantly venting did nothing to make me feel better. In fact, it just did the opposite. It has made me more and more angry. One of my roommates doesn’t do as much cleaning as I’d like him to, and makes a lot of messes. It’s stupid to complain because now I’m blaming him when obviously I’m contributing to the messes too. By complaining, I’m absolving myself of my culpability; I use him as a scapegoat. However, I’ve also absolved myself of the control of the situation. If it’s all his fault, then I can’t control him and therefore I can’t control the mess. If instead I focus on myself, then I can control how much I clean, and how much of a mess I make. I regain control of the situation instead of being helpless.

(None of this is new. I went through a bitching cycle before and decided I would stop complaining. Also, after reading Confucius, I decided that I would have to set a good example first, like a king setting a virtuous example for his people. If I can’t keep things clean, why should I expect my roommates to? I have to pledge to not complain again.)

Instead of bitching about my schoolwork, I can be thankful that at least my parents were able to put me through college.

This, by itself, wasn’t enough of an exercise to dissipate my anger. Regaining control of a situation is a necessary condition for happiness, but I don’t think it’s sufficient. I still had a lot of anger the next morning.

What did make my anger disappear? I talked to a couple of friends on the phone, listened to some goofy songs, and took a long shower. It was funny because before I called anyone, I was telling myself that I shouldn’t talk to anyone because I was too angry and wouldn’t be good company. However, my rational mind knew that the isolation wouldn’t help, so I made the phone calls.

Here are the lessons I have to remember:
1) When I’m depressed/angry, the best solution is interacting with other people.
2) Complaining always makes a problem worse. (Caveat: Complaining to the right people about a specific issue can make a difference. Example: My complaining about the dirty shower curtains in my dorm room. Other examples: With a business, a customer’s complaints can sometimes change things.) Specifically, if all you do is bitch about a problem, you’re making it worse. Find a solution instead.
3) Being angry can make you angry towards people you shouldn’t be angry at.
4) Assert your agency. Figure out what you can and can’t control about a situation.
5) Be a virtuous example before you blame others for not being virtuous.