Motivation

Anger & sadness are both reactions to having our needs thwarted or being threatened with punishment. 

Anger arises when our efforts to seek out reward are blocked or threatened, or when our ability to avoid punishment (fear) is threatened. Anger motivates us to act in ways that reverse or rectify the threatening situation, which often requires aggression, domination or violence towards the source of the threat.

Sadness also can result when we don’t achieve a reward or avoid punishment – for example, when something you care about, value or need – is lost or changed. However, while anger motivates action to counteract or correct this loss, sadness motivates acceptance of loss. Sadness slows us down so we can update our model of the world in light of a new reality.

Anger and sadness are not in themselves good or bad. They are justified and effective responses at different times. In the case where action can prevent a loss, sadness would lead to “giving up too soon”. In the case where a loss has already happened and there’s nothing we can do to stop it, anger often indicates that we haven’t fully accepted our new reality, and maintains the delusion that there’s still something in our power we can do to prevent the loss. 

This is why the stages of grief start from a position of shock (e.g. surprise – my model of reality is wrong! I may no longer have something I care about and need) to denial, anger, and bargaining – all of which involve a rejection of reality and attempts through our own heroic actions to reclaim a prior reality – to depression, testing and acceptance, which are stages through which an individual updates their model of the world in light of the new reality they live in. 

While we often think about the stages of grief in the context of the loss of a loved one, they can be applied more broadly to almost any unwanted or challenging change in one’s life, where a major “update” to one’s model of the world needs to occur. 

🙏 We’re reminded of the serenity prayer: 

God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Acceptance is sadness and is appropriate where we don’t have control over outcomes; courage is anger and is appropriate where we do have control. Wisdom, of course, allows us to know when we do and don’t have control over our environment – that’s the key.