Say someone in another car cuts dangerously close to you as you are driving on an expressway. If your reflexive thought is "That son of a bitch!", it matters immensely whether that is followed by more thoughts of outrage and revenge: "He could have hit me! That bastard --- I can’t let him get away with that!" Your knuckles whiten as you tighten your hold on the steering wheel, a substitute for strangling his throat. Your body mobilizes to fight. You want to kill the guy. Then, should a car behind you honks because you’ve slowed down after the close call, you are apt to explode in rage at him too.

Contrast that building rage with a more charitable line of thought:

"Maybe he didn’t see me, or maybe he had some good reason for driving so carelessly, such as a medical emergency."

That possibility proposes an open mind, short-circuiting the buildup of rage. The problem is that more often than not our anger surges out of control. There are, of course, different kinds of anger. The first comes as the sudden spark of rage we feel at the driver whose carelessness endangers us. But at the other end, angers surface as calculated ones; cool-headed revenge or outrage at unfairness or injustice. Of all the moods that people want to escape, rage seems to be the most intolerant. Anger is the mood people are worst at controlling, the most seductive; it fills the mind with the most convincing arguments for sinning. Anger is energizing, even exhilarating. Its power explains why the view that anger is uncontrollable, or that it should not be controlled is so common. A contrasting view, though, holds that anger can be prevented entirely. Still, studies show both views are misguided, if not myths.The train of anger-filled thoughts that fuels rage is also the potential key to defuse it, weakening the convictions that stokes anger in the first place. The longer we linger on anger, the more "good reasons" we can invent. Seeing things differently douses anger’s flames. To reframe a situation is one of the most potent ways to put anger to rest.