Seth Godin On Venting Anger

I religiously follow Seth Godin’s blog because each day, he has some new wisdom, or some new observation to share. Short capsules of wisdom, as I tend to describe them, they are something that I look forward to each day – my daily fix. Here is an excerpt from his post two days ago, that makes tremendous sense.

QUOTE

Unlike cupcakes, anger isn’t conserved.

If I have a cupcake and I give it to you, I don’t have a cupcake any more. But if someone who is angry gives you their anger, now you both might have it.

You’ve seen it too many times before. Someone is afraid, untethered or just upset about something that happened long before you walked into the room. Unbridled agita is dumped on you, spittle flying, eyes wide, personal invective unfiltered. Just feet away, the angry person is saying, “here,” and dumping vitriol in your direction.

All connection gets severed, any chance for positive engagement seems long gone. The opportunity, it seems, is to pick up some of that anger and throw it right back, where it came from.

And now, of course, both of you are having a bad day.

Shared anger destroys trust. It eliminates dialogue. It activates the lizard brain of everyone within earshot, and produces nothing of value.

UNQUOTE

Read the whole post on Seth Godin’s blog.

Author: Rajiv

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