7 Ways to Get Rid of Anger to Live Happy and Peaceful Life

Most people consider anger as something natural that comes from within. People also believe that anger should not be suppressed and allowed to be vent off. However, there can be serious consequences of getting angry at the inappropriate time. When you are angry, you are burning like a fire within which wants to destroy others even if it means destroying yourself. If you are in the grip of anger regularly, your life becomes a hell.

A big, tough samurai once went to see a little monk.

“Monk!” He barked, in a voice accustomed to instant obedience. “Teach me about heaven and hell!”

The monk looked up at the mighty warrior and replied with utter disdain,

“Teach you about heaven and hell? I couldn’t teach you about anything. You’re dumb. You’re dirty. You’re a disgrace, an embarrassment to the samurai class. Get out of my sight. I can’t stand you.”

The samurai got furious. He shook, red in the face, speechless with rage. He pulled out his sword, and prepared to slay the monk.

Looking straight into the samurai’s eyes, the monk said softly, “That’s hell.”

The samurai froze, realizing the compassion of the monk who had risked his life to show him hell! He put down his sword and fell to his knees, filled with gratitude.

The monk said softly, “And that’s heaven.”

Why do People Get Angry?

Anger is the greatest self-generated hell in the world. It is most unfortunate that most people today are living in this hell without knowing how to get out of anger. The modern world may be the most literate world in the history of mankind, but it is also the unhappiest world due to the hell of anger created by us. Anger is mutual and it is burning the humanity from inside.

• Parents are angry with the children who don’t obey and don’t study, while children are angry on their parents who don’t care for them and always preaching.
• People are angry with government officers due to their corruption and inefficiency, while government officers are angry with people for defaming them and not following the rules.
• Poor people are angry with rich people for accumulating too much wealth, while the rich people are unhappy with poor people who don’t work hard and always want to live on government subsidy paid through their taxes.
• People are angry with politicians who never fulfill their promises, while politicians are angry with people who never vote for them unless they make unrealistic promises.

What Happens When We Get Angry?

Anger may be harmful to people, but it is highly exploited by clever politicians and businessmen. When we are angry, our rational mind takes a back-seat and our emotional mind takes over. We are driven by the heart rather than our head in the moment of anger. Just like fire needs water for dousing it, an angry man needs sympathy for getting cool. This is the time for great business. The modus operandi is very simple.

The news in the electronic and social media generate hatred by showing only the negative side of life, and then they criticize the politicians, government officers in media debate. This fills the mind of the viewers with tremendous hatred. Thereafter, after every 5-10 minutes, they bring advertisements where the beautiful models and celebrities appear with their products to convince the people that if they use their product and services, they would enjoy happiness. Most people in their emotional state of minds fail to apply rational thoughts to the advertised product and end up buying them.

Politicians too create tremendous hatred in the society by cursing their opponents on all fronts and telling the people that they have been looted, defrauded by the previous governments for several decades. They ignore all their achievements and only talk about failures of the ruling party. When people are angry, they make impossible promises like giving all of them employment, making roads everywhere, giving houses for everyone, providing 24×7 electricity, giving them loan waivers, free electricity and so on. People fall into their trap forgetting their weaknesses and end up voting them. However, once these opposition parties come to power, they too fail to fulfill their promises, which is against exploited by the new opposition parties by fueling further anger.

• It is always easy to sell food to a man who is hungry.
• It is always easy to sell any product when a person is angry.
• If you are peaceful, you work using your rational mind and buy the things only if you need it.
• If you are angry, you end up buying things just to feel good.

7 Ways to Get Rid of Anger to Live Happy and Peaceful Life

If you wish to live a happy and peaceful life, you have to overcome your anger. You can do so by following the following Seven Rules of life.

1: Understand the Evil of Anger

Many people think that anger is good. They even display their anger in public to show that they are honest to their feelings and that they are good in heart.

It is natural to feel angry when:

Politicians are corrupt. Soldiers are killed on the border. Businessmen exploit the customers. However, there is no point in getting angry unless you wish to do something to solve the problem.

Getting angry does not solve or even reduce a problem.

If you are really upset with politicians or government officers or defense forces, go and join them to change the situation. However, when you are just getting angry without doing anything, it is simply a self-destructive act where you harm only yourself.

You must, therefore, realize that anger is bad just like smoking, drinking, or drugs are bad. Unless you believe that anger is harmful, you can never work upon to remove it.

2: Understand Yourself

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. Most people never know themselves. They know what they should be and not what they are. They are, therefore, frustrated and angry with themselves that they are not what they should be.

For example, if you are writing civil services examination, you are doing it so because you get so many facilities, perks as an IAS, IPS or other civil service officer. Many people are also attracted due to corruption and misuse of power in civil services. If you remove all these perquisites, civil services would lose most of its charm as it has already lost in most developed countries.

However, most civil servants and the aspirants talk about public service to be the purpose of joining civil services. While such answers would be necessary for the interview board and consumption for the public, you are fooling yourself if you too start believing in such social myths.

Learn to accept yourself as you are.

3: Know Others

Once you honestly know yourself, you can easily understand other people. Politicians don’t spend crores in elections and work 18 hours a day for social service. They too are attracted to politics due to the fame, power, and money in politics. You would never vote for them if they ask for votes telling you their true reasons. Hence, they say what you wish to hear and not what the truth is. The same holds good for businessmen who don’t work hard and take a risk to serve you. They do it to make money and enjoy the comfort and fame that comes with it.

Once you understand the people’s real motives, you can’t be angry with them.

4: Don’t Compare

You can never be at peace in life if you keep comparing yourself with others. You will always find many people who are better than you.

You never compare yourself with the people who are more unfortunate than you and feel happy.

You always compare with the people who are better off and then feel angry at the unfairness of the world and the system which failed to give you your due.

Be contented with whatever you have.

Be yourself and be happy.

5: Reduce Expectations

One of the main reasons for anger is the difference between our expectations and reality. When our expectations are too high from ourselves or from other people, we always feel angry and frustrated due to non-fulfillment of the expectations.

The ideal situation is to reduce your expectations to zero as advised in Gita. You must just do your best and leave the results to God or the laws of the world. You must plant a tree, give it regular water and fertilizer and let it grow at its own natural pace. You can’t improve its growth by high expectations.

If your expectations are grounded in reality, you won’t be angry at anyone.

6: Avoid the Company of Angry People

Don’t make friendship with angry and frustrated people. Don’t watch the TV programs which create hatred. Hatred is infectious and it grips all the people around them.

You can’t be cool if you are sitting near a furnace. You can’t have peace in life if you are in the company of angry and frustrated people.

7: Create Peace in Your Little world

Most people consider anger as natural and hence unavoidable. The hot, cool, and rainy weather are also natural. Don’t we protect ourselves by building houses, wearing proper clothes, installing fans, coolers, heaters, or ACs in our rooms?

We can similarly create an ideal world for ourselves. Our world is very small consisting of our family and friends. Make this small world free of anger by proper understanding of people and fulfilling each other’s expectations. You can do nothing about others who have chosen to be angry and burn themselves in the living hell. But you can always make a heaven around you in the same world.

Get out of the Hell of Anger

There is no heaven or hell outside this world. You create your own hell by creating anger in you. You can also make your life heaven by creating love and peace in your life. The choice is yours.

If you practice the seven rules given in this article, your anger shall vanish forever.

This article was originally published at Awdhesh Singh website.