Let me give you a couple of examples from my own life:
I got pissed at a friend for being late, and I gave him a hard time.
Yes, he was late. Yes, it was inconsiderate.
But was any real damage done? No. Did it signal some passive-aggressive attack by my friend? No. It had nothing to do with me. It had to do with him. Dude sucks at managing his time.
So why was I actually so pissed?
Whelp, when I thought about it, I realized my old man was always super late, and it really got under my skin. Probably a bit more than I consciously acknowledged. But when I thought about it, it stirred up the exact same anger. Of course, my dad passed, and I’m still not completely comfortable with accepting some of his failings. But my friend? He was a safe target.
His being late had almost nothing to do with me. My response had almost nothing to do with him. I was pissed at my dad. Had it not been an issue growing up, I probably don’t care too much, at least until an actual inconvenience was suffered. Yet I’m making this a problem between him and I.
Another One:
I’m an extremely defensive driver.
When I see a driver behaving aggressively, I get pissed. I’m not talking about a psycho driver endangering lives here. I’m just talking about someone safely but quickly moving through lanes. Perhaps a minor annoyance, but not a danger.
I get pissed. I tell myself he’s being unsafe, even if I know he really isn’t. I tell myself he thinks his time is more valuable than my time is. I call him an idiot or a punk or whatever.
What am I really mad at? I’m mad at myself. Because while defensive driving IS a better approach in general, part of the reason I embrace it is because I’d be too nervous to drive much more aggressively than I do. Scared, even. This guy isn’t. He’ll reach his destination sooner because he does not share my fear. Hell, if I follow it far enough down the rabbit hole, I think about how I’m too often a “defensive driver” in life. That’s something very few adult men want to be reminded of. I’m thinking about that as I watch him, if not consciously, then just under the surface.
Again, his driving has nothing to do with me, and my feelings aren’t actually about him. But here I am, getting pissed at him.
There are plenty of scenarios where anger at the obvious person IS warranted. If someone is threatening your life and limb, or your loved ones, or your livelihood (which is the same thing), then yeah, if getting pissed will help, it makes sense.
But man, if you took a step back at all the times you get pissed during the day, it’s usually pretty easy figure out why you’re actually upset, and it’s probably not why you think you are.
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YOU are rarely angry at who or what you think you are.
You.
So I’m glad you’re able to express yourself but this sub isn’t a therapy session. This isn’t an opinion. This is self reflection. The human experience is very different for very different people. I rarely to never get angry or mad especially in situations like you’re bringing up and I imagine a lot of others are similar. You might have anger issues or maybe this is just a real realization you’ve had about yourself recently. I imagine there’s some truth to it for everybody, but this very much is not as relatable as you think it is. And it just can’t be considered a popular or unpopular “opinion”
I think i see this in my own life. I have a friend who bugs me sometimes, and doesn’t usually stop when I ask him to. Too touchy and whatnot. It’s not a big deal, but I find myself being really pissed at him. But my little sister has behaved the same way for years, and it pissed me off too. So when I recognized the same behavior in my friend, it pissed me off more than other things do. I think this is the same thing you’re talking about? But I’m not sure.
if you came to this conclusion yourself, then wow, you’re very insightful! it takes a lot of humility to self diagnose your feelings / problems in life like this
This sounds like it belongs in r/Jung
I rarely get angry, the phlegmatic part of me just doesn’t allow it… If I get worked up, I found it is one of few things, wilfully stupid person/statement, unfair behavior ( many times stuff that is/isn’t legal but I think shouldn’t/ should be),
So…projection?
wrong. usually, people know exactly who we should be mad at. most just dont care and be mad at the nearest scapegoat.
I can always justify my anger because I won’t be angry if I can’t. It’s how I keep my anger issues at bay
You’re right.
I was sick last week and followed protocol and texted my manager, then went back to sleep.
She didn’t recieve the text. She flipped out at me, telling me I let the whole team down and that my communication needs to be better.
She was really just embarassed that she looked unprofessional
You are right that people often don’t know the reason of their emotions. People here claiming they know otherwise likely suffer from
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introspection_illusion
You just saved god knows how much money and time by self analyzing. Not many people can actually do this so kudos. And yea you’re totally right.
Sometimes I think this is true, but also, actually sometimes there are just things to be angry about. Personally, if I’m disproportionately angry about something I’ll question if maybe there’s something triggering that.