Flying Thoughts: It’s Okay to be Pissed Off

My flying thought for today; it’s okay to be pissed off.

I had a situation recently where I was required to be impartial, or as impartial as any one person can be. However, beforehand, something happened that really pissed me off. I won’t go into details because it’s not my place to share that here, but I will tell you this, I was bloody furious. The age-old adage that we see red when we’re annoyed is true. The red mist descends and blurs our vision, making us react in ways we’d rather not. As a society, being irritated, angry or upset is taboo. We don’t like people to know we are pissed off and so we bottle it up. Bottling up anger makes us a ticking time bomb. We wait for the straw to break the camel’s back and blow up.

Why should we hide our emotions?

We have no problem telling people when we are happy or excited, so why the issue when we are angry, upset or disappointed? My two cents on this is that we hide the emotions we see to be ‘bad’. We don’t like the way we feel when we experience ‘bad’ emotions and so we shove them deep down inside us. This isn’t healthy. Ignoring our emotions allows them to fester and grow.

You’ll often hear me talk about mental health and it is a topic very close to my own heart and, something I vehemently believe, is that we shouldn’t see emotions as good or bad. We need to deal with the emotions as they arise and move on. For me, in the case of the situation I alluded to above, I noticed the anger I was feeling and vented to a friend. I allowed myself to get these emotions out of my system in a safe space, which allowed me to get back to the job at hand. I’m very lucky that I have people around me to whom I can vent.

You can go round and round in circles about whether honesty is the best policy and likely always come to a different conclusion. However, if my life-experience has taught me anything, it’s that these ‘negative’ emotions can push us in the right direction. If you’re feeling frustrated about something, then something is wrong that needs rectifying. Having the ability to stop and think, ‘Hang on, this isn’t working for me,’ enables you to push towards a solution.

Of course, there are ways to communicate your frustration and anger safely, professionally and in a way that doesn’t make you look like a dick-head. Going into a situation, all guns blazing, and saying, ‘You’ve pissed me off!’ will, most of the time, backfire. I’ve seen, first-hand, (and I’ve done it myself in the past) that people pretend that they are okay, when really they are not. And this pretence only causes more problems down the line.

As part of the human experience, you’re likely to be pissed off at one time or another. Whether its with people or with certain situations, how you handle that anger is crucial. Using frustration and anger to motivate you to rectify the situation you’ve found yourself in can be a highly motivating factor. If people didn’t get angry, then nothing would change. There are plenty of things in the world that make me see red, and I’m (hopefully) doing my bit to change them.

Being pissed off can be like lighting a fire under you. It forces you into action. And with action, brings change. Allow yourself to be angry. Angry at the world, at injustice, at discrimination, at poverty, but don’t just sit with that anger. Let it light the flame within you.

What makes you angry? How are you going to use that anger to bring about change?