Shaun Groves
Anger is dumb. It doesn’t work.
The waiter brings you Diet Coke instead of just plain Coke. Does chewing him out get you a Coke faster? Nope. And it might just get your entree spit on.
The lady at the front desk doesn’t have your reservation in her computer. Does throwing a tantrum get you a room any faster? Nope. And you might just get stuck on the smoking floor.
The gate agent announces your flight is delayed, you won’t be getting to Nashville as quickly as you’d planned. Does yelling at her get the plane from Vegas to you any faster? Nope. And somebody might just blog about you and take a picture of you sleeping.
(Pictured above: Angry guy accomplishing nothing.)
kim says:
That is funny! If more adults thought they would be called on it, they might think before acting foolish. Someone needs to create a website for posting public tantrums. People might just be a little nicer to that waitress who only makes $2.13 an hour before dealing with a grown up two year old and getting a $.50 tip!
jason_73 says:
That is one of the best examples of blogging I have ever seen.
Lisa says:
You are so right!
There are two kinds of problems in this world…the kind you can do something about, and the kind you can’t. DO something if you can, and if you can’t do anything, just be.
The key is to reflect God’s love the entire time. Problems or not, that’s the most important thing!! And that is what will make an impact on people.
John Dennis says:
Ah, the advantages of cellphones for discreet snapshots.
Really, we would live differently if our moments were archived.
Oh… wait – I guess they are.
Veretax says:
No no it is “there are 10 types of people in the world, those that understand Binary, and those who do not ;D” Okay silly moment aside. Anger is usually not the first emotion in a situation, in the case of the diet coke mix up, its disappointment, the problem is pop culture has lead us to believe and thus be conditioned that the response to such a mix up is to “blow up”. I used to love watching Donald Duck as a kid, because its hilarious to watch him throw a tantrum, but in retrospect, it really is not funny at all in the real world. We are all people, we all are created by God and filled with the potential he has given us. We are also all fallen sinners who are bound to mess up even the easiest of tasks. What we need to do in situations like these is exhibit empathy. Consider the other person’s shoes. Maybe your burger is wrong, not because of the clerk, or even the sandwich prep, maybe the machine printed the wrong order on the slip. We really should get away from jumping to anger, and Jump to kindness instead. After all Jesus wants us to love our neighbors and our enemies. If more Christians jumped to Kindness instead of Anger, we could draw a whole lot more people to the Lord.
Sarah Chia says:
Unfortunately, being nice never works, either.
Rachel says:
Hm. I was thinking of this very thing whilst driving to work this morning. I can get pretty impatient (mostly internally) in the car. Even if I’m not expressing it, I think it’s just as bad. John has a great point: our moments are archived. Now that’s humbling.
In other news…I just e-mailed my pastor about bringing you out here, since I saw in your last entry that you’re booking April-June. I’ll let you know what he says!
Travel safe today, Shaun.
gillie says:
[hanging head in shame]
Yikes, I was that person last night…and I needed to read this blog today.
Travel safe–I’ll be praying for you guys over there, and I can’t wait to read along during the whole thing.
Mark says:
So I’m waiting in my poling place to vote this morning. The person before me wasn’t registered even though he says he should have been. The guy behind me and I wait several minutes while they try to figure out what to do with this guy.
About the time they are finally ready to help us, the guy behind me starts complaining to the staff about how we’ve had to wait and no one was helping us.
Um, thanks for the added delay while they talk to you instead of helping me.
Mark
sadcox says:
I’m now inspired to take my flip video camera with me everywhere!
Awesome post!
RevJeff says:
I LOVE “those people” next time, can you discreetly webcam him and then ask him innocently for his email address?
On the flip side of the travel rage, oddly enough also involving Kansas City…. In 1999, after a four and a half our delay at MCI… my luggage went to Denver while I went home to Minneapolis arriving at OhGodThirty in the AM when we should have nbeen there at 11PM… The gate/ticket/baggage/customer service agent was a college student who made $7 an hour… SHE stayed with me until OGT+45 minutes until we had my luggage located and assured me that she would follow up FIRST thing in the AM when she came back in… (She was there three hours past her supposed “GO HOME” time. which is a reminder that they have families too!)
I asked her if she happened to be a Christian. She said, “Well actually yes. Why do you ask?”
I told her that I had witnessed three other passengers who had questioned “her” status as an actual human being that night because of circumstances way out of her control… and in another city for that matter… yet, she still approached me with patience and compassion.
I’ve never looked at the travel industry the same way since.
Glenn Lavender says:
I guess we were both flying this weekend when everything went nuts. I was stuck in the Buffalo airport because they closed it as I was boarding the plane. Then upon arrival in Chicago I found out my next flight was cancelled. Missed the first night of worship at a D-now. While watching everyone around me react I was considering writing this same post! So now I’ll just refer to yours since you got the picture too!! Nice.
Glenn
hmmmmm says:
Anger is dumb?
God’s anger ‘burned’ against His peeps and their enemies. Christ raged on figless trees and bird-selling temple-salesmen.
What if anger wasn’t dumb? What if the way some people express it is dumb? What if anger was actually quite constructive, especially when contextualized in the light of God’s truth? Hmmmmmmmmm.
shaun groves says:
Are you God?
Cali Amy says:
Getting angry while traveling is the easiest sort of thing to do especially if you’ve been traveling for awhile and are exhausted from lugging around heavy suitcases etc.
I tend not to be an angry person, and in fact despise anger and all it’s confrontations, but I have seen that it does work at times. I’ve seen angry people get what they want, while smiling me gets stuck with whatever the bad situation is.
I don’t want to have to be angry to get the right solution, and in fact, won’t throw a tantrum, but I’m just saying that it does seem to work sometimes.
I desperately wish that people would remember that other people are just as real as they are and that for every angry outburst there is some kind of consequence somewhere. I think our individualistic society has dangerously de-emphasized this.
Alymc says:
That’s really funny ..
Oh wait ..
Ummm… that looks a lot like my dad.
Ok, not so much. But that still is quite funny.
Cheri Herron says:
Reminds me of a similar time in Louisville. Flight to Detroit was cancelled, but Minneapolis was boarding at that moment at the next gate. The person in front of me threw a tantrum because he was rerouted… then screamed more when told they couldn’t move his luggage over…
My turn… I smiled and was nice to the agent when she told me (not her fault)… she called and had my bags switched to the new flight.
Just a friendly reminder to be nice to the agents…. sometimes it all in your attitude.
P.D. Ross says:
Brilliant Shaun, Brilliant!
Randy W says:
Haha, I’m realizing that myself lately.
David says:
I’ve been on the other side of the retail counter, so I know what it’s like to have customers throw temper tantrums over situations you didn’t cause. Since I worked in a video store, they were often quite trivial situations at that (like a certain newly released movie being unavailable because all of our copies got rented out that morning).
So I find it helpful in situations like that to remember that usually, whatever went wrong isn’t the fault of the person whose job it is to deal with me. In other words, don’t shoot the messenger.
That said, I’ve found that it often helps to be firm. Throwing a temper tantrum isn’t good, but letting yourself get pushed around by people who are too lazy to do their jobs and/or afraid to admit they or their superiors/subordinates/company/whatever made a mistake also isn’t good. The dude/chick behind the counter is often at the bottom of the food chain, and may not know exactly what to do with your special circumstance when a computer glitch erases your reservation, or weather cancels your flight, or whatever. I’ve seen people just go “Oh, well, I guess I’ll figure something else out” and be on their way, but in those situations, it might be better to calmly but firmly ask if anything can be done to remedy the situation rather than just letting the lackey at the counter throw up their hands and say, “Uh, sorry.” At the very least, you can always ask to speak with management, and allow the lackey to keep the line moving along, all without making a big scene out of it.
And usually when I have to be firm with someone in a low-on-the-totem-pole position, I let ‘em know that I realize this isn’t their fault, but that I need to speak to someone with the authority to make a decision regarding how to handle my unique situation. Because that was the best way for me to handle things back at the video store when the customer insisted they’d returned their last rental at 9:59 PM and shouldn’t have to pay an extra day for it, and so forth.
hmmmm says:
Interesting response…Am I God? Certainly not. But do we not all bear God’s image? My point is simply, what if anger (as one of many emotions that God has given us and one that He Himself was not shy about) is not actually dumb in and of itself. Like so many other things in our world, sin has tainted and destroyed. I am certainly not advocating the destructive and irresponsible uses of anger, but why can’t anger be used constructively?
There is some very interesting psychological research going on in regards to “constructive anger” and its active expression via relationship. For those interested, check it out:
Constructive anger verbal behavior predicts blood pressure in a population-based sample. By: Davidson, Karina, MacGregor, Michael Wm., Stuhr, Judith, Dixon, Kim, MacLean, David, Health Psychology, 02786133, 20000101, Vol. 19, Issue 1
I especially recommend checking out the 12 ways of dealing with anger constrcutively (Table 1). For those skeptics out there, I ask you a simple question: when you get angry, what do you do with it?
Peace
Shaun Groves says:
God is allowed vengeance, but not me. God is allowed jealousy, but not me. God is allowed wrath, but not me.
Also, I am in the image of God yet I have been a porn addict, greedy shoplifter, inattentive father, selfish friend, poor listener, egomaniacal rock star, and much more that is outside the image of God.
I cannot be all that God is. And all that I am is not what God is.
On anger, Paul says get rid of ALL anger and bitterness. That word “anger” in the Greek means – you guessed it – anger.
in Psalm 137 (the psalm Jesus quotes in his third beatitude on meekness) we’re told not to be angry or fret – the word is where we get our word “char” as in burned. Don’t get burned up about stuff. Why? The psalmist says if we’re committed, trusting, God there’s no need. God is in control of the world, not us. So, don’t worry, fret, or be angry.
I love science, especially psychology – I do – but it doesn’t trump the bible for me. Nor does pragmatism. The bible’s clear: don’t be angry. Old and New Testament. We’re not God. And because HE is we’ve got no good reason to be pissed off…no matter how much good we may be able to wring out of it.
hmmmmm says:
Shaun,
I appreciate your latest comments. I think we are saying the same thing to varying degrees. While anger is “not allowed” for us humans (as you put it), it is still an emotion that humans experience (and some of us more than others…as all my fingers point at me). While Paul certainly says “get rid of anger” (among other things) he also says “in your anger do not sin.” An interesting caveat. Because I am not God, I certainly cannot practice anger responsibly in any form…but interestingly, my anger informs me that something is wrong in my life. Call it a sinner’s red flag or a prodigal’s bullhorn, but my anger lets me know that there is something happening in my soul that needs attention. For me, this soul-searching often leads to identifying an injustice. Whether the injustice is related to myself or someone else, my anger points me to my huge need for Christ. Identifying injustices and feeling the pain and hurt that are usually present underneath the anger has driven me time and again to the foot of the cross.
I may be a simple mind, but I guess that is what I would call a constructive use of anger…
So, God is still allowed anger and I’m still the sinner who can’t help being angry but is trying to understand it, get underneath it, and fight the injustices that it tends to throw in my face. But that’s just me…
Thanks man.
Stefanos says:
Very good blog! I like it! Thanks!
Anonymous says:
I don’t get it.
masini bucuresti says:
I was ok till ten minutes ago when my daughters boyfriend induced me to feel extremely angry. I am having a very difficult time putting this aside and came on ab in hopes of losing the feeling.
I should change my name to: “sweetcakes is not so sweet after all”
since i feel like smashing everyone that shits me off today.
Anger is such a negative soul destroying emotion.
Scooter Girl says:
That is so true. Arrrrrrgh! Arrrrgh!