Areas › Anger › What you are actually defending
The aim is not to work out the answer. It is to keep moving while the answer is missing, and to find that the fear does not have to run the day.
When something is unsettled, your mind hands you one job after another: replay it, check it, decide what they really meant. You can put those down and still get through the afternoon. Set the bar there for now, at carrying on without the matter being closed, and notice afterwards that the not knowing did you no harm.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Everything to do with this affair is in God's hands (Quran 3:154). You are allowed to stop needing the full picture, because holding all of it was never your work.
ثُمَّ أَنزَلَ عَلَيۡكُم مِّنۢ بَعۡدِ ٱلۡغَمِّ أَمَنَةࣰ نُّعَاسࣰ ا يَغۡشَىٰ طَآئِفَةࣰ مِّنكُمۡۖ وَطَآئِفَةࣱ قَدۡ أَهَمَّتۡهُمۡ أَنفُسُهُمۡ يَظُنُّونَ بِٱللَّهِ غَيۡرَ ٱلۡحَقِّ ظَنَّ ٱلۡجَٰهِلِيَّةِۖ يَقُولُونَ هَل لَّنَا مِنَ ٱلۡأَمۡرِ مِن شَيۡءࣲۗ قُلۡ إِنَّ ٱلۡأَمۡرَ كُلَّهُۥ لِلَّهِۗ يُخۡفُونَ فِيٓ أَنفُسِهِم مَّا لَا يُبۡدُونَ لَكَۖ يَقُولُونَ لَوۡ كَانَ لَنَا مِنَ ٱلۡأَمۡرِ شَيۡءࣱ مَّا قُتِلۡنَا هَٰهُنَاۗ قُل لَّوۡ كُنتُمۡ فِي بُيُوتِكُمۡ لَبَرَزَ ٱلَّذِينَ كُتِبَ عَلَيۡهِمُ ٱلۡقَتۡلُ إِلَىٰ مَضَاجِعِهِمۡۖ وَلِيَبۡتَلِيَ ٱللَّهُ مَا فِي صُدُورِكُمۡ وَلِيُمَحِّصَ مَا فِي قُلُوبِكُمۡۚ وَٱللَّهُ عَلِيمُۢ بِذَاتِ ٱلصُّدُورِ
After sorrow, He caused calm to descend upon you, a sleep that overtook some of you. Another group, caring only for themselves, entertained false thoughts about God, thoughts more appropriate to pagan ignorance, and said, ‘Do we get a say in any of this?’ [Prophet], tell them, ‘Everything to do with this affair is in God’s hands.’ They conceal in their hearts things they will not reveal to you. They say, ‘If we had had our say in this, none of us would have been killed here.’ Tell them, ‘Even if you had resolved to stay at home, those who were destined to be killed would still have gone out to meet their deaths.’ God did this in order to test everything within you and in order to prove what is in your hearts. God knows your innermost thoughts very well
Qur’an 3:154read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Across four experiments, being provoked led to more aggressive behaviour, and part of how it did so was by feeding angry rumination and draining self-control. These were laboratory provocations with volunteers, so the effects are modest and the setting is artificial. Still, the useful part holds: going back over it is not a neutral act, it is one of the things keeping the anger within reach, so declining to solve it is doing something rather than giving up.
Denson TF, Pedersen WC, Friese M, Hahm A, Roberts L. (2011). Understanding impulsive aggression: Angry rumination and reduced self-control capacity are mechanisms underlying the provocation-aggression relationship.. Personality & social psychology bulletin doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Chasing certainty keeps the whole scene switched on in your head, and leaving it open lets your body come down on its own.
When not to
If what is unresolved concerns your safety or someone else's, that one needs answering rather than tolerating.
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
Say what you would prefer and what you will do, not what they have to feel. I do not like being spoken to this way, and if it carries on I am going to step out of the conversation.
Righteous anger pays you something. It burns off doubt, hands back a sense of being in charge, and can feel very close to intoxicating.
Anger and doubt cannot really occupy the same moment. Anger sharpens everything to a point, and a genuine maybe blunts it.