This I learned from the President of Afghanistan

A couple of weeks ago I was walking down a New York street and Ashraf Ghani, president of Afghanistan, was speaking to me. Actually he wasn't speaking just to me -- he was being interviewed on NPR so a few other people were listening as well. But I wonder whether Ashraf's words hit them quite as hard as they hit me.

As interviews go it was pretty standard stuff -- How dysfunctional are politics in Afghanistan? Is the Taliban still a threat to your government's existence? Why is your economy falling apart?

And then came the reporter's most startling question: "Do you ever get angry at a situation?"

The question was unexpected because anger isn't the kind of subject interviewers generally ask politicians about. Their emotions fall into a squishy realm -- do we really care how they feel about issues they're dealing with? Not really. We mostly care about their positions and outlook -- Things are good or bad, favorable or unfavorable, easy or hard.

But this time the interviewer strayed from convention and asked Ashraf to break the fourth wall and allow us into his head as he deals with his big Afghan problems. "Do you ever get angry?" is the kind of question parents ask of each other when talking about how best to manage their children.
So I perked up a little, startled at the question but not expecting much of his answer -- just a politician's normal deflection.

But this is where the life-changing part comes in.

This is how Ashraf Ghani, president of Afghanistan, responded to the question: "If the situation makes you angry, then the anger becomes the issue."

This was for me -- no exaggeration -- a transformational moment. In one 12-word sentence life became a whole lot clearer. I suddenly saw there's the stuff that happens in my life (the "situations") and then there are my reactions to that stuff. That could be "the anger" the reporter asked about or, by extension, any other emotion such as fear, happiness, frustration, pride...anything really.

What became apparent to me in that moment, what Ashraf Ghani was really saying, is when a situation arises he either deals with the situation or with the anger it causes. But dealing with the anger is separate from dealing with the situation -- actually it deflects and detracts from it -- therefore making him much less effective.

Sudden clarity has the power to shock, and for the rest of that day I noticed how often I dealt with my reaction to a situation instead of the situation itself. For instance I was on the Lexington Avenue subway on my way to a meeting when the train suddenly stopped and remained motionless for some time. Since I was late for my meeting I noticed I was getting annoyed, then frustrated, then angry. None of which did anything to resolve the situation itself. When the conductor announced there was "a smoke situation in Union Square" causing the delay, I recalled Ashraf Ghani -- my anger had become the issue. So I shifted my focus onto what I had to do after the train began to move. Which it did, eventually. And I arrived at my meeting late, but way more composed than I would have previously.

Life is an endless minefield of situations: Last week I felt disappointment as one of my sons made a lunch date with me, and then canceled. The cable in my apartment died in the middle of an NFL playoff game. An important trip to Boston was canceled due to a snowstorm. Each time, separating event from emotion made a useful difference.

How often anger replaces the situation -- and how useless that is in solving anything.