Expanding the Envelope: A Method for Beating Anger

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Here’s what I’ve been learning about anger in the last few years: it’s purely because of selfishness.

Almost every time we get angry, it’s because something isn’t going our way.

I’ve been practicing a method for beating this selfish anger, and I call it Expanding the Envelope of Compassion. That’s a pretty amazing title, I’m sure you would agree.

Before we talk about the method, let’s look at why anger is so selfish. Here’s what happens:

  1. We want something a certain way.
  2. Other people (or occasionally, the Universe!) don’t give us that something in that certain way.
  3. We get mad.

This is like a little kid who doesn’t get his way. Exactly like that little kid, except we’re grown-ups and are supposed to know better. I’m no different — I get angry just like everyone else. We act like little kids because the part of our brain that’s getting mad is really no different than a scared, selfish child.

Let’s say we’re working and someone interrupts us: bam, so pissed off! Life is suddenly a boiling rage. OK, maybe we’re just annoyed. Why are we so annoyed/Hulk-enraged? Simply because we wanted to continue to work uninterrupted, but some buttwad has ruined that perfect fantasy.

Or let’s say you want something from your spouse (love, attention, sex, support) and they don’t give it to you. Grrrr! How could they! We want something and we expect them to give it to us, and we think, “Why don’t they? It would be so easy!” No different from a kid who wants that Rocky Road ice cream and throws himself on the floor kicking and screaming when he doesn’t get it.

Here’s the thing, though: the other person doesn’t have the same fantasy as us. The person who interrupts us isn’t as concerned about us working without interruption. While that fantasy is our universe, it’s not theirs. Their universe is about getting something else done, and they need to interrupt us to get that done (or maybe they want to tell us a joke, which is probably very clever I’m sure).

Our spouse’s universe isn’t to give us sex or support. Maybe that’s part of the universe, but the spouse has other things going on, other needs.

Our universe isn’t everyone else’s universe.

Expanding the Envelope

OK, we get it. Anger is selfishness, wanting something and then throwing a tantrum when we don’t get it, and our universe isn’t everyone else’s universe. Now what?

A method that works for me is what I think of as Expanding the Envelope. Widen the envelope of your perspective, from what you think is important to what the other person sees as important.

If you want something, that’s one small bit of awareness … but widen that awareness to include what the other person (or people) want, what they’re going through, what their problems are.

Even if the other person is being a complete jerk, if you can see it from their perspective, you might realize they’re having a hard day, or maybe even a hard life. That doesn’t excuse whatever they’re doing, but you can have some more empathy and compassion for them. If you can have an envelope of compassion for yourself and others, it helps with anger, frustration, and disappointment.

What helps to do this is to become the watcher of your anger, rather than the participant. When we get an angry impulse, we tend to act on it — lash out, show irritation, give a frustrated response like “Seriously?!”

Note: If you use a phrase like, “Seriously?!” or “WTF?!” or “Really?!” then that’s a sign you need to change your outlook. It’s a sign that you think people should behave the way you want them to behave, and when they don’t, you’re frustrated/irritated/angry.

Instead of acting on that impulse, just watch it. Become the observer. When you do that, you put some space between yourself and your angry impulses, and in that little space, you have room to decide. How will you respond? What’s going on here? Why are you so angry about something so unimportant? What fantasy/ideal are you holding onto that you didn’t get, and that’s making you angry?

And as you consider your response, you can then Expand the Envelope. Take some deep breaths, calm down, consider your actions. Consider the other person’s point of view, why they might be behaving this way. Don’t think, “They shouldn’t act that way” but instead think “Why would someone act that way?”

Now, Expanding the Envelope a hard thing to do on a regular basis. As you widen your envelope of awareness, do it like reducing the sugar in your coffee. Gradually.

Expanding the Envelope: A Method for Beating Anger was originally posted on Zen Habits on 4/15/13.

There’s No Task Easier Than No Task

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“Remember that there is no code faster than no code.” – Taligent’s Guide to Designing Programs

What’s the fastest way to get a task off your to-do list?

Just delete it … or don’t put it there in the first place.

When we read articles and books on productivity, getting things done, effectiveness, it’s not because we want to be hyperefficient or as speedy as Gonzales. It’s because we’d like to accomplish Something Amazing.

Which is a good thing. But we must remember that: let’s not try to be productive for the sake of being productive. Let’s focus on getting to done (or better yet: just doing what we love).

And the best way to get there is to keep things as simple as possible. What are the fewest number of steps required to get there? How can we remove busy work and distractions and wasteful meetings and needless tasks?

Omit needless tasks.

Cross them off your list, or make it hard for them to get there in the first place. Make every task that goes on your list past a test: is it truly necessary? Will I have felt great about doing it, when I’m done?

Because not doing it at all is often the best way to get things done.

“The cheapest, fastest, and most reliable components of a computer system are those that aren’t there.” – Gordon Bell

There’s No Task Easier Than No Task was originally posted on Zen Habits on 10/1/09.

The Habits That Crush Us

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‘Don’t panic.’ ~Douglas Adams

Why is it that we cannot break the bad habits that stand in our way, crushing our desires to live a healthy life, be fit, simplify, be happier?

How is it that our best intentions are nearly always beaten? We want to be focused and productive, exercise and eat healthy foods, stop smoking and learn to get rid of debt and clutter, but we just can’t.

The answer lies in something extremely simple, but something most people aren’t aware of:

We don’t know how to cope with stress and boredom in a healthy way.

The bad habits we’ve formed are often useful to us, in dealing with stress and boredom. Consider the bad habits that fit this bill:

  • Smoking
  • Internet procrastination
  • Eating junk food
  • Drinking
  • Being rude/angry/depressed
  • Watching TV or playing video games (if you become addicted & sedentary)
  • Shopping (getting into debt, building clutter)
  • Procrastinating on finances, paperwork, clutter (too stressful)
  • Inactivity (avoiding exercise is a stress avoidance technique)
  • Biting nails, chewing hair, clenching jaw

This isn’t a complete list, but all of these habits fill a strong need: they are ways to cope with stress and/or boredom. We have formed them as coping mechanisms, and they stick around because we don’t have better ways of coping.

So what if instead, we replaced them with healthier ways of coping? We’d get rid of the problems of these bad habits, and start getting the benefits of better habits.

Better Coping Habits

How can we deal with stress and boredom instead? There’s no one answer, but the habits we form should be ones that lead to healthier results. Some ideas:

  • Walk/run/swim/bike
  • Do pushups, pullups, squats
  • Yoga/meditation
  • Play with friends/kids
  • Create, write, play music, read when we’re bored
  • Learn to enjoy being alone, instead of being bored
  • Take a daily walk and enjoy nature
  • Deal with finances, clutter, paperwork immediately, in small steps, so that it doesn’t get stressful
  • Take control of a situation: make a list, get started in baby steps, so things don’t get stressful
  • Learn to be mindful of your breathing, body tension, stressed-out thoughts
  • Get some rest
  • Learn to savor healthy food that you find delicious
  • Slow down
  • Take a hot bath
  • Learn to live in the present

These are some good examples. Each habit above will help cope with or prevent stress or boredom. If you replace the bad habits with these, your life will be less stressful and healthier. You’ll have less debt, less clutter, less fat, less disease.

Changing the Habits

The old habits of coping didn’t build up overnight, and they won’t go away overnight either. We built them up through years of repetition, and the only way to change them is also years of repetition.

But an important start is to realize why we do them — stress and boredom, largely — and realize that there are other ways to deal with these two problems. We need to be aware when stress and boredom start to kick in, and instead of being afraid of them, realize that they are problems easily solved by other habits. Let’s take the fear out of stress and boredom. Let’s learn that we can beat them simply, and prove that with repeated good habits.

Once you have that realization, follow the usual Zen Habits steps to changing a habit:

  1. Pick one habit at a time.
  2. Start very small – just a minute or two, if you want it to stick.
  3. Use social motivation like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or email.
  4. Be very conscious of your triggers, and do the habit consciously every time the trigger happens.
  5. Enjoy the new habit. You’ll stick with it longer if you do.

We have been crushed by the habits we’ve formed out of fear of stress and boredom. We can fight back, by learning to breathe, to smile, to go slowly. We can humble these giants that crush us by turning them into mere gnats to be shooed away with a smile.

The Habits That Crush Us was originally posted on Zen Habits on 1/23/12.