Handling Anger

It's all very well to have "big dreams" in which a High Priestess tells you in no uncertain terms to lose your anger but the challenge is to actually do that consistently in a daily life that is filled with vexations. At Pondok Indah mall today I decided on a whim to buy a gelato, something I've never done in all the years that I've been in Indonesia. The advertised price was Rp22000 in big black letters. I ordered a mango gelato and handed over the exact amount of money. However, I was promptly told the price was Rp24500. As I queried the amount, I pointed to the big black letters but the guy trying to take my money pointed to the tiny black letters at the very bottom of the display referring to an additional tax. Well that was too much for me and I walked away off in a silent huff without paying.

Roy, who had been nearby, told me shortly afterwards that a second guy who had already prepared my gelato had then attempted to catch up with me and give me the gelato presumably at the price displayed. However, the escalator was very close by and I was already on my way down it. "A silent huff" is still a mild form of anger and so I'm using this rather trivial incident as an opportunity to reflect on how to better handle such situations in the future. In the past I would have been more vocal and more demonstrably angry at the "injustice" that I was being subjected to. In that sense, I've progressed a little. My best course would have been to simply smile and propose that I was only willing to pay Rp22000 with no possibility of compromise. In the light of what happened, that offer would have been accepted.

I don't think I should have paid the full amount because then I would have remained inwardly angry and that's dangerous. It killed my mother. She was unhappy in her domestic situation and angry about certain things that she should have spoken up about but instead she smiled and maintained a false but happy face. The anger found expression through a virulent form of lung cancer. I don't want to risk that by swallowing my anger but at the same time I don't want to be overtaken by it. The trick is to be quick enough to catch yourself before the anger ignites and that means being alert. The ego is always on guard to defend itself against injustice and, in my case, anger is its favoured weapon. I, as the so-called "intelligent observer", have to intervene and stop the ego from instinctively picking up that weapon, or any weapon, by using more imagination and creativity in dealing with potentially anger-provoking situations.

As Eckhart Tolle says in "The Power of Now":

Remember that the ego needs problems, conflict and "enemies" to strengthen the sense of separateness on which its identity depends. It's only by finding sufficient stillness in myself that I can create enough space (and time) between the stimulus and the anger. In that space, there is time enough for the intelligent observer to deal with the situation. Stillness only arises through meditation.