An Irritated Oyster

I felt the anger welling up in me the other day.

Normally I am a pretty calm and mild mannered guy. I have the kind of temperament where I need a few seconds to process internally before I speak. I don’t just say the first thing that comes to my mind … I usually say the 15^th thing that comes to my mind. 

Sometimes I opt to say nothing at all as I run through all the options.

Also, I am a forgetful kind of person. So anger with me is unusual because I tend to forget the heat of the moment and even what I was going to be angry about by the time I get done with the processing.

But I could feel the anger welling up in me the other day and I could not even explain why. There was no situation immediately confronting me that would have caused this anger. 

There was no call, email, or interaction of any kind. It was just random anger welling up that felt almost the same as that moment before you are going to be sick that you get that weird taste in your mouth. Anger was coming.

I took a walk. I thought, I analyzed, and I experienced one of my MOST CREATIVE moments of clear thinking I have ever had. So I researched anger to see what just happened.

What I found was that anger can be a motivating force when you RESPOND to it without REACTING to it. That means stepping back and analyzing it, and not just lashing out. Anger causes people to be more optimistic, no really; there are studies to prove this. The difference is that our reaction must be one of anger and not one of fear. Fear causes pessimism about the future, anger causes optimism about the future. Anger can also give you insight about yourself. You should understand yourself a little better every time you get angry. What did you learn about yourself the last time you go angry? There are some studies that say anger REDUCES violence. Not that seems counter-intuitive but most studies show that violence comes from fear, not anger. Unfortunately we have trouble discerning the difference in the heat of the moment and fear looks an awful lot like anger.

There is nothing wrong with anger. Jesus showed anger repeatedly. The question is what are you going to do with the anger when it presents itself? Will you turn it into a constructive clarity? Will you use it to change injustice? Will you use it to make your point forcefully?

As I walked off my anger a phrase kept coming into my mind from something I read somewhere: “A pearl is the result of an irritated oyster.”

Are you making pearls?