Areas › Anger › Righteous anger and perfectionism
If you are simmering most days and cannot point to what set it off, look at the standards you are running rather than at the day itself. A rule that is never quite met keeps producing small failures for you to react to.
Try listing what you expected of this morning, hour by hour, and see how many of those expectations were met exactly. Most people find a long tail of near misses they never consciously registered but certainly felt. Loosening one of those rules, say the state of the kitchen or the reply that should have come by now, takes a few of the day's small alarms off the board.
Qur’an and Sunnah
God wants ease for you, not hardship (Quran 2:185). If a standard you are keeping produces only hardship, it is fair to ask whose standard it really is.
شَهۡرُ رَمَضَانَ ٱلَّذِيٓ أُنزِلَ فِيهِ ٱلۡقُرۡءَانُ هُدࣰ ى لِّلنَّاسِ وَبَيِّنَٰتࣲ مِّنَ ٱلۡهُدَىٰ وَٱلۡفُرۡقَانِۚ فَمَن شَهِدَ مِنكُمُ ٱلشَّهۡرَ فَلۡيَصُمۡهُۖ وَمَن كَانَ مَرِيضًا أَوۡ عَلَىٰ سَفَرࣲ فَعِدَّةࣱ مِّنۡ أَيَّامٍ أُخَرَۗ يُرِيدُ ٱللَّهُ بِكُمُ ٱلۡيُسۡرَ وَلَا يُرِيدُ بِكُمُ ٱلۡعُسۡرَ وَلِتُكۡمِلُواْ ٱلۡعِدَّةَ وَلِتُكَبِّرُواْ ٱللَّهَ عَلَىٰ مَا هَدَىٰكُمۡ وَلَعَلَّكُمۡ تَشۡكُرُونَ
It was in the month of Ramadan that the Quran was revealed as guidance for mankind, clear messages giving guidance and distinguishing between right and wrong. So any one of you who is present that month should fast, and anyone who is ill or on a journey should make up for the lost days by fasting on other days later. God wants ease for you, not hardship. He wants you to complete the prescribed period and to glorify Him for having guided you, so that you may be thankful
Qur’an 2:185read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis separating two sides of perfectionism found that perfectionistic concerns, the self-criticism and the fear of falling short, carry the associations with depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive and eating disorders, while simply holding high standards shows much weaker links. So the trouble is not caring about doing things well. It is the harsh appraisal attached to every shortfall. These are associations pooled across studies, not proof of which way the causation runs.
Limburg K, Watson HJ, Hagger MS, Egan SJ. (2017). The Relationship Between Perfectionism and Psychopathology: A Meta-Analysis.. Journal of clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Every unmet standard registers as something going wrong, so a strict standard means more things going wrong all day.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
When someone is in full flood, leaving is allowed. Getting out of the way of a person who is past listening is a skill, not a defeat.
There is a steadiness worth aiming for: hearing someone disagree with you without either going off at them or going quiet and small.
That flash of temper when someone meets a fact that undoes their story is not stupidity. It is a mind defending its own shape, which is a real need rather than a shameful one.