Anger Should Be Channeled, Not Managed: Here’s Why.
I used to think the world had a lot of angry people that’s why it’s crazy, but I recently discovered the world lacks enough angry people…and this is why it’s crazy.
“Please don’t be angry”. “Control your anger”, “count 1–10 backwards”. All these are words thrown about related to anger, like it is a flu, this malady to be taken care of. I have thought so too for the longest of time that I will be the best of persons when I can no longer get angry, that it will become a medal, something to pride myself on, I imagined being called “Jean the girl that never gets angry”. Now I feel like gagging just thinking about it.
Back up a bit…
I am not canvassing for a national day of rage or anything. I think I should start by explaining what anger is and why it doesn’t deserve the negative rapport it has had all this time.
What is Anger then?
An emotion! Plain and simple, so simple that I don’t need a scholarly quote, an emotion so base and primary to humans, an emotion as important as hunger, babies know it, old people know it, angels know it…even the dead feel it, ask Abel.
This simple definition is where we must start from. Anger is an emotion, just like love. But why do people always mention it in a negative light? Because of fear and as they should rightly be. If I should use any element to describe anger it will be fire, not the one used for controlled fire fighting drills but like a wild forest fire.
Anger is a response and it is never without a trigger, we have missed out big time in properly deciphering what our anger is responding to and this is where the real goldmine lies, not the anger itself but what it points at.
What has happened over time is that we have let so much of ourselves become eroded in the name civilization, of modernity and of the idea of prim and proper such that our true nature and design is wrapped up in layers and layers to the point that we lost sensitivity and touch with who we really are, it is anger that brings us to see again, who we truly are, what we truly hate and what we have been born to change.
Stay with me now.
No tangible change, I repeat, no tangible change, movement or shift ever happened without anger. And I am speaking both from a personal to collective level, name it, from human rights movements, to suffrage, to independence, to anti slavery, to protests and riots that change the course of humanity. They were all rooted in anger properly diagnosed and channeled.
No amount of anger management therapy will rid anyone of anger, what we need to learn is first how to understand anger, then how to channel anger. Think of this like the ability to bend by an avatar, the ability to bend an element is as important as having the power. ( This allusion will be lost on you if you haven’t watched Avatar, and I don’t know why you haven’t).
Anger is power.
Anger was put in us by God! It is not an emotion to kill, it is one to understand and channel, note that I didn’t say manage…nah. It should be wielded as the power that it is.
On a personal level I dare say that real change happens when we are angry, angry enough about things, our spiritual state, our weight, our finances. On a societal level I dare say nothing is sweeter than corporate anger, this was how nations of old won battles, changed laws and charted new courses for themselves. From great men and women like Rosa Parks, Mary Slessor, Martin Luther King Jnr, to Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and others, these were persons who were angry with what ought not to be and what should change. And more important than knowing this emotion they were able to channel it.
I strongly believe that anger and love are two emotions that man shares with immortals, in these states we become gods, tapping into power, conviction and tenacity that transcends our frail mortal frames.
Amazingly Anger and love are two sides of a coin (article for another day) you cannot love without anger or get angry without love.
So far the point I have been driving is first to make you stop seeing anger as negative, anger in its original state is neither good nor bad, it is simply a force that can be used. It is in its application that anger derived its definition.
Lastly if I must end I would end with this quote by Aristotle.
Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy." ~ Aristotle
In my next article I will go in-depth to how to properly decipher what your anger is pointing towards and how/where to apply anger and who knows I just may add the story of my journey with anger and what I currently use anger for.
I would love to hear what you think about anger and this piece.
Thank you for reading…hear from me soon.
