Quick question: What do Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, and Rosa Parks have in common?
I ask people this question every so often, and there are three responses I get more than any others:
- They changed the world.
- Their actions impacted millions of lives.
- They came from peace and love, rather than violence.
And I agree. Those are all true, valid answers. But there are a couple of other things these four have in common.
First, they all had something, someone, or some event in their lives that made each of them very, very angry.
And second, they were able to take their anger and rage, and channel it into passion for change.
MLK was furious about race relations, but he didn’t incite people to riot. He moved the world with his passionate words.
Angry over India living under British rule, Gandhi didn’t call his country to war. His nonviolent resistance earned his country’s freedom and independence.
After Tibet fell to China, the Dalai Lama didn’t implore his followers to rise up and take arms against their aggressors. He has worked to gain freedom and independence for his people, winning the Nobel Peace Prize for “advocating peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect…”
And Rosa Parks was infuriated when told to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. But she didn’t throw rocks at the driver, or have a mob flip the bus over. Parks simply sat. Her simple act of quiet defiance became a catalyst that helped bring down heavily entrenched segregation.
All are historic figures. All were angered by something larger than themselves. And all were able to transmute that anger into passionate action that got powerful, positive results. Changing the world forever.
For me, growing up in a single parent household, anger was something to be avoided, denied, shut down at all costs.
Anger was scary. Especially to my mother. Being angry also showed a lack of self-control. And it was wrong. “How dare you be angry! You should be grateful for all you have…”
So I spent much of my life trying to deny my anger. Swallowing it, instead of expressing it. Caging this beast I felt roaring inside me, pretending it didn’t exist. And it was slowly killing me.
It caused a host of stress related medical issues and illnesses. Problems with my stomach, chronic neck and back pain, blood sugar issues, anxiety. The list went on and on.
I was also dead inside. Years of pushing down my anger and emotion made me numb. I was resigned, I had no motivation, no drive, no passion. I can’t tell you how many relationships this cost me.
It was only when a mentor told me he noticed I never get angry, not even a little agitated, that things started to turn around. My initial response was the same one so many men give about why we don’t show anger, the famous line from the Hulk: “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
It was my way of saying if I ever let my true anger and rage out, it might be uncontrollable. I might never be able to put it back in the box. I was afraid of what I might do, who I might hurt.
He laughed at me. As a man raised among cattle ranchers, commercial fishermen, and military veterans, he knew what true directed and undirected rage looked like. How natural it is to be angry.
He taught me that my anger could be either limiting or empowering.
The limiting side of my anger was the one I was taught to fear. The side that broke things, attacked people, incited physical violence. The out-of-control rage that could be so violently destructive. To others and to myself.
Then he showed me the empowering side. How my anger could be used as fuel to ignite passion. The same passion used so brilliantly and effectively by MLK, Gandhi and others. Passion that moves the world forward.
And I have the power to decide which side to use. I have the ability to command it. It doesn’t have to control me.
Passion has become my motivation engine, my spark. Now when I see an injustice or something that really pisses me off—and my knee jerk reaction is “somebody really needs to do something about that,”—I let myself get good and angry about it… then decide what passionate action I can take. What’s the something I can do about it to make it right.
Over to you. Find something that really pisses you off. Gets you so fired up and angry you want to blow up the sun. Deeply feel that anger and transmute it to passion. Passion that motivates and inspires you to take positive actions to right the wrongs. Actions that might end up changing the world.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
