The Uses of Anger

I am really pissed off right now. Someone just did something that messed up my life — not horrifically, but a busload more than I’d like. I keep telling myself it’s no big deal. But right now I could chew up that bus and spit out the bolts. I could fight a bear and win. I’m that mad.

The only problem is, I actually couldn’t fight a bear and win. Bears are quite large, as it turns out, and sharp in the places where it counts. So before I run out screaming into the woods (there are plenty of bears around my house), I must remember that fighting mad usually doesn’t equal invincible. Usually it equals carnage. Sometimes it equals dead.

I wish the world didn’t work this way. I wish it worked like the movies. On the big screen, when the good guys get angry enough, they can suddenly play football or drive a spaceship or litigate lawsuits with superhuman power. RIGHTEOUS ANGER ALWAYS WINS! HOO-AH!

But for some maddening reason, real life refuses to function as Hollywood insists it should. The good guys don’t suddenly triple their capacity when something feels unfair. The bad guys often win.

So what do I do with all this anger? Swallow hard and read my Bible? Submit with a smile? Offer up my suffering as a sacrifice to docility?

NO. FREAKING. WAY. I’ve tried the righteous martyr thing. It’s never gotten me any further than blind fury.

In fact, I believe that anger is a wise counselor. Red-faced, foul-mouthed, screaming, deeply unattractive, but ultimately wise, just like my college thesis advisor.

I think anger is visiting me right now to help me find my integrity, which will lead me into justice by any and all available paths. I think integrity, fueled by a dose of anger, creates paths to justice that have never existed before.

The blend of anger and integrity brought down slavery, overthrew despots, gave people of color, and then women, the right to vote. It just launched a friend of mine out of a horribly abusive marriage. Anger, used honestly, makes heroes.

When you peel off all the randomly violent parts, anger simply says, “Something here is not as it should be.” Either something is present that can’t be tolerated, or something is lacking that needs to be here. Anger won’t let us rest until we’ve figured out what’s excessive, or what’s missing, or both.

John O’Donahue once wrote:

May we discover
Beneath our fear
Embers of anger
To kindle justice.

Right now I’m going to sit with my anger, chewing my hangnails and growling softly through my incisors, until I can hear the calm message anger has for me today. What must I get rid of, or at least stand up to? What must I gain, or at least request? How can I do what needs doing without taking a baseball bat to anyone’s car?

Grrrrrrr. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. GRRRRRRRRRRRR! GRRRRRRRRRRR!

Oh, wait! Aha! I see that I need to back waaaaay the hell off a relationship that’s been making me nervous for months. I see that the relationship feels unfair, nonreciprocal, draining. I need to tell the truth about that.

Okay, now I’m scared.

But that’s the thing about finding the cool recommendations that lie at the heart of hot anger. They always tell you to make changes that are a little — or a lot — frightening. I hate conflict, and I don’t like telling unpleasant truths. But if I chicken out now, if I abandon my integrity and don’t tell this person the truth, I’ll get fighting mad again.

That’s how it works. Don’t act bravely, and you end up raging pointlessly. You frighten your children, hurt the feelings of innocent bystanders, end up getting killed by bears.

So I will use the hot energy of my anger to push me through the cold dread of changing my life in powerful, honest ways. I will handle the conflict that results. The person who’s caused my anger may end up being a better friend, or no friend at all. Either way, the relationship will be aligned with my integrity.

The thing I greatly dread has got to be done. So anger teaches me.

Damn, that makes me mad.