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Steven Covey, author of the best-selling book ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’, writes that he was once traveling on a train when a man entered the train with his two sons. The children were acting rowdy and annoying some of the commuters. When this continued for a while, the irritated Covey asked the father why he didn’t do something to control his kids. “We just got back from the hospital where their mother died,” the father replied. “I don’t know how to handle it, I guess they don’t know either.”
Anger is often based on split-second determinations. We see something, and without knowing all the relevant information, we make judgments and assessments – while filling in information gaps with ‘logical’ assumptions. And once angry the facts no longer matter (as explained in my previous post).
Nothing heals anger better than time. Grow angry all you like, but do not react immediately. The passage of time will allow you to assess things rationally and with a clear mind. Time allows one to ask himself the question: Am I operating with the full picture?
This advice is more profound than it first seems. Anger naturally dies away. It disappears by itself. When anger first explodes, it appears to be a raging fire that cannot be stopped. But doesn’t the biggest conflagration eventually burn out?
In summary: pausing for time and not acting immediately on one’s anger allows the anger to A. die away and B. gives us time to see if we are actually operating with a full picture.