When is enough, enough? Well, it’s now enough, especially when promises made are broken!
Prosecutions, Eskom, Investment, jobs – they were all promised. And there was a plan. And we are nowhere.
Feeling betrayed and lied to. Get angry. But there is a risk. Anger, if not well directed, can turn in on you. If suppressed, it acts against you. It needs to be ventilated. But how do you do this and remain positive in thought and action. It needs both. Thought alone is not enough because thought alone can turn into a prayer, dream or fantasy. That’s yielded little for most. Action is the difference.
Listen to the discussion that Pavlo Phitidis had with Bruce Whitfield and The Money Show listeners about anger:
This is not a new idea. It’s been written about before because its part of the human condition and wise people, desirous of finding answers to a good life, one well lived, have done some hard work on it.
The Upanishad, part of the sacred scriptures of most Hindu traditions are a good example. They talk to 3 conditions in the human psyche - Rajas, Tamas and Satwa. Written around 600 BC, they talk about how you can work with these three states-of-mind to make for a good life.
- Rajas – is a state of high energy. Positively, it’s vital for a wild party, a race, getting things started and done in a business. Negatively, it starts fights, breaks things and creates destruction like a bull in a china shop would.
- Tamas – is a state of low energy. Positively, it’s vital to help you get to sleep. Negatively, it can find you brooding over an injustice, darkening your mood and can slip you into a depressed state.
- Satwa – is a state of bliss. It’s the balance between Rajas and Tamas.
It’s similar to the Tao found in the Ying Yang symbol. It’s also about balance. It’s also an old text dating back to 400 BC and forms the corner stone of Taoism. It’s represented in a circle divided in two halves by an S-shaped line. The one half is 90% black with a white dot. The other half is 90% white with a black dot. The black represents dark energy and the white, good energy. In all dark energy, there is some good and vice versa. The Tao, the S-shaped line passing through the middle of the circle represents the right-way. It’s again about balance and equilibrium.
What’s interesting about these ideas is that you need them both. Dark and light, good and bad, aggressive and subservience. You need opposing energies to find your bliss or equilibrium.
How do we use this approach to be angry but remain positive?
To illustrate this, I’d like to use the example of a fight. In Kung Fu, a critical part of learning the art is to put it into practice. This means sparring or competing through fighting. It takes place in a circular ring with red and yellow lines on the outside. To win, you need to either knock your opponent down or out. Alternatively, you need to win on points which are earned when your opponent steps onto or over these lines.
When you step into the ring and face an angry opponent, besides it being frightening for a few seconds, you face one of three options.
- Get angry yourself and let your anger lead you
- Give up
- Get angry and breath to calm your mind to find the balance between anger and calm
Driven by Anger
Anger drives impulse. It’s high energy. It’s all rajas and if not controlled, feeds on itself and deepens the crisis. Your opponent throws a big punch, you respond, he responds, you respond, and the fight turns into a brawl with a winner and a looser. We saw it in Hong Kong, Chile and the USA recently where the anger, uncontained and uncontrolled led to violence, destruction and deaths as people protested governments and presidents. It’s a fight that sees the one with the greatest power, win.
Giving Up
Suppressing your anger or denying it is tantamount to giving up. Repressed anger drives depression and destroys your confidence and joie de vivre. It erodes your life through wated time. Time you can never get back. It makes you despondent and anything you have achieved before it rusts risking you living as a mistake and dying as a relief.
Turn Anger into Positive Inspiration
The energy of anger, as you embrace it, holds tremendous power. It seeds inspiration and action, both of which will most likely see you in service of something greater than yourself. The anger I experienced in seeing my family fail in business has led to Aurik which has helped thousands of business owners. It has given me meaning through service and belief in the future as I witness everyday businesses thrive in a no-growth economy. Well directed, it creates through action, the remedy to your source and reason for the anger. A life lived outside of creating something is life wasted.
Be angry. It’s deserved. Using some of this ancient wisdom left to us by our forefathers, direct it into your business. Don’t let it consume you. Consume it and turn its energy and drive into a positive outcome for your business, your staff, customers and suppliers. What other choice do you have…the clock ticks and time runs out. Make the days count.
At Aurik we work across four continents. Increasingly, people are angry. Anger cracks open the door of opportunity if you know how to harness it and where to look. It’s what we do with all our clients in this new reality. It’s what we can do with you too. Connect and let’s make it happen!
