DW's Blog
Anger Is Bad Fuel
by DW Green — February 12, 2020
What happens when that initial anger runs out?
Getting angry almost never solves anything. Usually, it makes things worse. We get upset, then the other person gets upset—now everyone is upset, and the problem is no closer to getting solved.
Many successful people will try to tell you that anger is a powerful fuel in their lives. The desire to “prove them all wrong” or “shove it in their faces” has made many a millionaire. The anger being called fat or stupid has created fine physical specimens and brilliant minds. The anger at being rejected has motivated many to carve their own path.
But that’s shortsighted. Such stories ignore the pollution produced as a side effect and the wear and tear it put on the engine. It ignores what happens when that initial anger runs out—and how now more and more must be generated to keep the machine going (until, eventually, the only source left is anger at oneself). “Hate is too great a burden to bear,” Martin Luther King Jr. warned his fellow civil rights leaders in 1967, even though they had every reason to respond to hate with hate.
The same is true with anger—in fact, it’s true for most extreme emotions. They are toxic fuel. There’s plenty of it out in the world, no question, but never worth the costs that come along with it.
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DW I enjoy your blogs every week especially on anger. Remember Ed White Linda’s dad? Ed worked for me about 15 years and I can remember telling him a story about Kellen and how I used fear as a motivator to get Kellen to respond to getting some chores done and Ed looked at me as if I was an idiot and said to me that fear is a short term motivator and should never be used in a long term situation, or in any situation if at all possible He told me to find another way as it will be longer lasting and more impactful, and he was so right. You know Ed worked in the Denver Public school system with Gifted kids. He was very good and very wise with people. Your anger blog which is as you say bad fuel for fear. Too bad our boy in the white house hasn’t figured that one out.