Holding Out In The Face Of Anger

Anger is an emotion that comes with its whole lot of expressions, if I may say. It's that feeling that would want to overwhelm you and make you act out of its wills and volitions. It tends to bring one to that state where all that matters is the action or deeds of the moment.

I think there's more to the understanding about anger than what is conventionally known and held as true knowledge. I guess that's what becomes of our understanding when we become subconsciously submerged in a particular sense of knowledge.

"Anger is an emotion, and you're allowed to be angry". Yeah, that's right. Might be hard to agree due to the preconceived idea we've had—a misconception actually. Like any other emotion, anger is also one, and as much as you exercise the others, so is the case with anger. It's not an abominable thing to be angry. It means one is actually all right and the systems are working. Nevertheless, there's a thin line to justification of anger as an emotion you're supposed to express.

Rightfully, one is allowed to be angry, yet there are limits to the anger concern. There should be constraints to level one should get angry, not withholding the validity of being angry. A lot of things; personal or impersonal have the ability to prick our emotions and set the anger tone rolling. Sheer reasons of pain, failure, injustice can put our emotions to that test. Yet, there should be a limit to it. I guess, that's where the misconception rolls in.

For the many repercussions of anger that we've seen, it's proven to be something we should have no thought of associating with. In several cases were anger was anger was vented in rage, it mostly ended a scene highly despised. So comes the idea that places it something "abominable".

I wouldn’t want to totally tie myself to a side in this discourse; silent or expressive when angry. However, for the most, I'll tag myself as silent when angry. For the most cases I say. Still holding true is the fact that I've been expressive in few cases when angry. Well, few cases.

At some point in my life, the more prevalent aspect of me in this matter was the expressive side. Funny thing was that I didn't even recognize that till it was pointed out to me one day. I was kind of doing it "low-key". Don't get me wrong, being expressive isn't a bad thing. It's the best way for many to express their emotion. Something I realized over the years was that many of those who tend to express anger find it easy to let go whatever the case, as much as they get to release the tension through such expressions.

This is in no way also me saying that the silent ones tend to hold to the cases even as they don't put to expression. I fashion myself as one who offers silence as response to anger, at the moment especially. This because of the words I might say that will turn regretful for me later. I had received a caution in this sense which caused a different response from me when angered. I learnt to be silent so I don’t “break someone's head with bottle" at the moment—chuckles.

Being expressive or silent when angry should be a function of what works well for us while maintaining decorum in such cases. Being expressive doesn't mean it will just go wrong. This is how many find rest from the situation. And being silent doesn't mean it will go right. It tends to go the other way sometimes. What should matter is putting a constraint to our actions or deeds when angered, so that we don't end up doing things we'll be remorseful about later on.

This is my entry for the #februaryinleo prompt, Day 11 in collaboration with Hive Naija. You can participate here.

^{All images are AI generated}

Thank you for reading!