What Are You Angry About? (Fixing Healthcare)

OKAY.

I've been reading this book, recently "Where Does It Hurt?: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Fixing Healthcare" and came across an interesting passage:

I reached the conclusion not long ago that anger, either white hot or smoldering, is a fundamental fuel for entrepreneurs. They don't have to be angry all of the time, of course; that would be no fun for anyone. But it helps if deep down they nurse some wound, grievance, or perhaps a sense of injustice. The anger gets them stoked. I think Steve Jobs was often angry. I often see myself as friendly and humorous. Sometimes I am, but in thinking through phases of my life for this book, I realized that during many of my most productive stretches, I was seething, and also terrified of impending failure. This combination of fear and anger, along with a good bit of luck, served me well during those difficult months.(p.54)

In lieu of this, I wondered what my great motivators were and what it would take for me to become successful. What would it take to be the productive machine that can accomplish all the wonderful, noble things I'd like to accomplish in life?

All my life, I believed it to be passion. (defined: "strong and barely controllable emotion")

I also believed that there are two forces at tension driving human behaviors: a pulling force, akin to love, that forces us to fight and a pushing force, akin to fear, that forces us in flight. We need both a pulling force and a pushing force to keep us moving forward.

Now, I am generally a very agreeable woman. Anger and strong opinions are just not part of my interpersonal repertoire. I like to believe I'm guided primarily by love and compassion.

Maybe I've been conditioned to dismiss anger as a negative fruitless emotion so I've never allowed myself to be angry. I was afraid of feeling angry and aggressively defending my ideals. I've been angry before, at people, and it was uncontrolled and untapped and sometimes hurtful. I can be scathing and cruel (hard to believe, I know, but just ask my ex). I would always feel guilt and shame, like a classic Mr. Hyde, and maybe that's why I'm so afraid of the emotion. 

However, the running theme in the past few months of my life has been the dissipation of fear--facing my personal demons head on. If demons are fallen angels, then anger is a corrupted emotion spun out of love and the need for preservation. Anger can be a force that helps us to fight for that which we seek to love and protect. Unbridled, however, it is as harmful as Cyclops' optic blasts.

Don't be afraid to admit you nurse your own wounds, grievances, or sense of injustice.

What am I angry about?

The broken and archaic healthcare system? The limitations of human movement? My friends and family getting hurt? Growing up less "privileged" than most of my colleagues in the Bay Area?

Will I ever own a rehabilitation clinic focused on new research/technologies? Write that sci-fi novel? Write those short stories? Will I ever go on that volunteer trip abroad? Will I ever be able to give back to my parents? So many smoldering ambitions and so many energy resource options...

I don't agree fully with Bush's statement on entrepreneurs and anger. But perhaps anger is an emotion I should let myself explore.

Also, a good video between Malcolm Gladwell and David Goldhill:

The Big Story: Fixing Healthcare

Currently Reading: Where Does It Hurt?: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Fixing Health Care (Jonathan Bush, 2014); Jailbird (Kurt Vonnegut, 1979)

Currently Listening: Bad Girl (Usher)


Brainstorming thoughts
Energy resources / Analogous motivators:
Solar energy = love
Wind power = fear
Fossil fuel = anger?
Hydroelectric = physical