Be Smart, Not Angry
Manage Your Emotions
Everyone has emotions, and humans experience both positive and negative emotions. Road rage results from anger, a negative emotion with a high-intensity energy consumption. The results of expressing anger vary according to how a person develops his or her ability to manage feelings. A moderate amount of anger is average in most people because we are human beings and express our emotions. Every individual has energy, and how they use it to respond to triggers on the road results in road rage. Let’s look at the following exhibit to understand how we use human energy, which results in road rage.
Raging behavior is a learned response that significantly impacts an individual's emotional energy management. Energy serves as the fuel for positive and negative emotions, and anger is no exception. Those who lack the necessary skills and capabilities to manage their emotional energy will respond differently to triggering events than those who have honed these skills. Road rage often begins with triggering events such as traffic jams, crowded streets, honking horns, tailgating, and more. It's important to note that triggers that lead to anger can occur not only on the road but also at home, work, or any other place. When an angry driver gets on the road, the chances of road rage doubles because a second trigger results in anger with high intensity.
If you learn to manage your emotional energy, you can regulate anger, resulting in no rage. People who lack the skills and capabilities to manage anger result in road rage incidents. This raises the more general question of why individuals get angry. The most common reasons people get angry are because they have unrealistic expectations. For example, someone is late for work and gets on the road, and there is a traffic jam. A traffic jam triggers anger, and the person gets into a road rage incident. They also want to control others and are not concerned about others.
The most effective way to deal with anger is first to recognize the problem, then identify the triggers, and finally learn to manage the anger. Ultimately, anger results from individual behavior patterns, so blaming the triggers is not a rational solution to anger problems. Instead, develop the skills to manage our emotional energy effectively to reduce anger. Remember, it's about being smart, not angry (Ahmed, 2016).