On Anger
[Image credit Mike Monteiro, used with permission]
In a recent set of conversations with old friends and colleagues, a recognizable pattern has emerged. We’ll catch up on what they’re up to. I’ll give my rundown of all the recent excitement. And then inevitably, they wind up with a smile on their face and each of them says the exact same thing:
“You don’t seem angry anymore.”
It has been painfully difficult for me to realize that I have spent the better part of my career angry at something. The people around me. The problem I was trying to solve. This client, that user group, or the competitor who’s doing it wrong and making a ton of money, loudly banging on about their total lack of insight.
I have realized, sheepishly, that I believed that anger made me better at what I do. That it focused me, gave me a reason to give a damn more than the next designer, strategist, or cook (long story). And in the rare instance that “giving more of a damn” mattered, perhaps it did. But it was corrosive.
My anger created a barrier to the people who wanted to collaborate with me. It weakened every point I was so desperately trying to communicate - I was coming from a place of pure emotion. It wasn’t that other people didn’t get it - they weren’t my problem.
I was.
I’m someone who likes to fix problems. If you’re angry, being somebody that is supposed to stand up for other people is a natural calling. I try to design and build things that increase joy and decrease misery in peoples’ lives. In the process of becoming an advocate for the needs of others, I became a problem that I couldn’t fix. My anger was making me unhappy.
The oddest part about realizing all of this, and of having friends comment on it, is that I never consciously tried to change anything about how I worked. I don’t think I even realized there was something wrong with being unhappy. I just was. And then, slowly, I got better at enjoying what I do. At not wishing a problem had a face, just so I could punch it.
Make no mistake: I’m still angry. My friends will testify to that. I still tilt at my windmills, and get wound up over things that no one else seems to mind. But the anger isn’t what fuels me anymore, and it certainly isn’t at the core of my work. I’ve enjoyed a series of small victories this year, some of the greatest of my career. I can’t shake the feeling that all of this is related.
I’m doing precisely what I want to be doing, and it’s not to spite anyone or anything else. Even myself.
