We tend to put anger in the category of negative. As if there is no reason for a sensible person to ever be angry. If you know me, you know that I believe that each object has a positive and negative side to it. Sure, untamed, anger can make you do reckless things without caring about the consequences. In result, civilized people do all that they can to suppress their anger, or even worse, redirect the anger to something totally unrelated. The act of even showing a little bit of anger makes that person unreasonable and unmentionable. Truth is, anger serves a purpose. If it didn’t, we’d never have it in the first place.

Anger Creates Motivation

The best method of using anger is to change it into positive energy. I’d like to say good leadership comes from a productive use of anger. When it comes to facing barriers in life, anger can be used as a motivating force to push pass them. Some of things we want in life, we’d easily give up on if we weren’t angry about it. If Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was never angry about the injustice we subjected to in the south, he’d probably never be motivated to become one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.

It might be ironic to say, but angry people and happy people have one thing in common. They are full of optimism. One is optimistic about the future in the sense that it wouldn’t (and in their perspective shouldn’t change), where as the angry person is optimistic in the opportunity to make change.

Anger Builds Relationships

Anger is the universal language of hurt feelings, feeling wronged, and injustice. When we hide this emotion, our relationships tend to falter. This is what society tells us what to do. The problem with hiding your emotion is that your partner doesn’t know that there is something wrong. They will continue as if nothing needs to change, while the pain festers from within you. The effective use of anger in this predicament is to find a solution rather than simply vent. This will only strengthen the relationship.

Anger can also build the relationship with yourself. If you feel the pain of anger, you can then figure out why you have that emotion. We can then us that revelation to promote self-change.

The Evil Side of the Coin

Yes, I’ve mentioned that anger can be used for positive means, but that’s not discrediting the fact that it can also be a destructive emotion. With this blog post, I just want to point out a dichotomy of one emotion as en example to just about everything. Happiness doesn’t always mean good, just as anger doesn’t always mean bad. A person that isn’t happy is more likely to spot mistakes than a happy person. An unhappy person is also going way more motivated to make change happen. Every emotion has an upside just as long as we know how to use our emotions for good.