Trego's Mountain Ear

Anger is like pain. It’s unpleasant, but informative. If you’re in pain, the logical course of action is to figure out why, and decide whether or not you can do something about it in the future. It’s a stimulus that demands a response.

Anger is very similar. If you’re angry, the question to ask is ‘why’, and ‘can I do something about this situation?’. Like pain, anger often indicates that something is wrong. Like pain, it isn’t something to be wholly avoided, nor taken as an injunction for action without thinking. But it bears consideration.

Feeling angry tells us things. It tells us that something in the world is not as we would like it to be. More than that, though, anger often tells us that we feel we are being treated badly or unfairly.

If you’re angry about the situation around the green box site, for example, it’s worth considering the reason. Are their people in our community who simply cannot make the designated drop-off days? Almost certainly.

Are there one-off reasons for more of us to be in that situation? Absolutely. Holidays reduce available days, bad weather, car trouble, simple life events can occupy further days.

Are you angry because the situation is unfair? Maybe so. Maybe being forced to risk increased conflict with bears because of arbitrary trash days that you had no input in deciding is a reason to be angry.

Or perhaps you feel you, and your neighbors are being talked down to? Patronized by people who feel that they, not the community, must make the decisions that are best for us and for our families.

If you’re angry, it’s worth considering the reason.

But that’s only the first step. Anger can be a call to action. It’s true that sometimes the action must be internal, to accept that which cannot be changed. But it isn’t always.

By all means, be angry. Be angry at politics. At politicians. At government bureaucrats insulated from any consequences from the harm their bad decisions cause.

Be angry. And then do something.