You Can't Make Me Angry

No matter how hard you try, you can’t make me angry.

I’m not joking. I haven’t raised my voice in years. The people I worked with at Lehman Brothers might find that hard to believe, but it is true.

This is something I’ve had to work very hard at. Anger was a big character defect of mine. I used to be a borderline rageoholic. Part of that was a function of the job—a bunch of scummy hedge funds trying to pick you off every day tends to put you in a foul mood. When I was trading ETFs, I would get downright homicidal about 2-3 times a day. So angry that my whole body was shaking. I broke phones, tape dispensers, mice—anything I could get my hands on. I would pound the desk so hard with my fists that everyone on the trading floor would look up in astonishment. I once had such a spectacular phone smash, with pieces of plastic tinkling on the desk, that I got a standing ovation. This was Wall Street at its ugliest and most exciting time, when that sort of behavior was actually encouraged.

It also probably took about five years off my life. Your body isn’t meant to function under that kind of stress on a daily basis. Could I have done that job without all the rage? Absolutely, I could have, and I probably would have been more profitable. Nothing, absolutely nothing good comes out of being angry. It is an unproductive emotion.

Being angry is great while it’s happening, especially justified anger. When you are wronged by someone, and it is not your fault, and you clearly don’t have a part in it, being angry feels good. But what comes after is not so good. You get what’s called an emotional hangover, and you feel remorseful and guilty for days. And then you have to swallow your pride and apologize to the person that you yelled at, and then that person has leverage over you. Or you could just be one of these people that never apologizes, ripping on people day after day remorselessly. There is a technical term for this person: an asshole.

I don’t like being angry because I learned (over a great deal of time) that I don’t like the feeling of being angry. It disturbs my peace. I really don’t like the emotional hangover that comes with being angry. It is the worst feeling in the world. The thing about yelling at people on a trading floor is, at least back then, nobody really took it personally. But some people took it personally. There are still some ex-Lehman people floating around out there who think I am a black belt jerk, and there is not much I can do about it.

Being angry can also be a career-limiting move. It was widely reported that actress Katherine Heigl was notoriously difficult to deal with. She doesn’t get much work these days. Dave Kingman hit 35 home runs in his final season—and wasn’t invited back for another. David Ortiz is in the Hall of Fame, but Barry Bonds is not. It’s not just the steroids—Barry Bonds was a king-size dickhead. Even in baseball, where everything is quantifiable, interpersonal skills count for a lot. They count for a lot everywhere. Not many people have achieved positions of responsibility by consistently being a douche. It catches up to you after a while. And if you are working in an organization where those types of people rise to the top, you are probably in the wrong organization.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but people yell at each other a lot less than they used to. Go watch some movies and TV shows from the 80s—all yelling. Today, nobody raises their voice in entertainment—not even the bad guys. In my house growing up: lots of yelling. In your house growing up: probably lots of yelling. I got yelled at plenty when I was in the Coast Guard. You will never believe this, but the Coast Guard Academy actually banned yelling last year.

But just because people don’t yell, doesn’t mean they don’t get angry. And that’s perhaps even worse, when you’re angry but you don’t have an outlet for it. How do you express your displeasure to someone who is pissing you off? Lay off the all caps button. And don’t make it personal. Keep it about the issue, not the other person. You can say, “It upsets me when you do XYZ, and I would like you to change your behavior.”  You should not pull the R. Lee Ermey gunnery sergeant on someone, as tempting as that may be.

You might be nostalgic for the days when people yelled at each other, but they are never coming back. And my theory is that we are in a never-ending process of civilization, the verb, not the noun. With every year that passes, we are becoming more civilized. Two thousand years ago we were feeding people to the lions for laughs. Now there are no more kickoff returns. And people are kinder to each other, which is progress. As a society, are we softer than we were 40 years ago? Have we created a generation of cherries? It is possible. But what do we need to be tough for, anyway?  The next war is probably going to be fought from behind a computer.

Most people don’t know me from my angry days, and that’s a good thing. A close friend of mine, who lives in Charlotte, remarked recently that he’s never seen me mad. Imagine being a child and never seeing your parents angry. My house growing up was like Kramer vs. Kramer. That movie, by the way, was released in 1979 amidst all the Boomer divorces. It grossed $173 million on an $8 million budget. Such was the zeitgeist.

These days, the most angry I get is a state of mild annoyance. People don’t always do what you want them to do. Good luck trying to change other people. Most of the time I just go around. You’re not going to yell someone into submission. I mean, you might succeed in doing that, but you’re not going to get the most out of that person in the future. If I find myself getting annoyed, I ask myself the following three questions:

1.     Does something need to be said?

2.     Does something need to be said by me?

3.     Does something need to be said by me right now?

If those three conditions aren’t satisfied, then I shut the fuck up. At some point in the future, those three conditions will be satisfied, and then it will be time to say something. Chances are, you will know when it is time.

Imagine going the rest of your life without ever getting angry. It just occurred to me when the last time I totally lost my shit was. It was in 2013. Nine years since I lost my squash. It’s been a great nine years. Trust me, it’s a better way to live.

Go fuck yourself,

Jared

Music Recommendation: Chicane – Spirit (feat. Jewel). So this is a good one. Chicane (Nick Bracegirdle) was a legendary trance producer in the late 1990s. Some of it went mainstream—I’d bet that you’ve heard some of his stuff.

Anyway, Nick produced an album that was scheduled to be released in 2003 called Easy To Assemble. I’m not sure how it happened, but it got leaked on the internet, went viral, and the album release was scuttled. This is back in the days when the music industry was still fighting the filesharing sites. There’s about 100 promo copies floating around, and I tried to buy a few of them on eBay, and got outbid. They were going for $200 apiece. Eventually, I just lost patience and downloaded it off a Russian download site. Nowadays, it’s all on YouTube.

But there is some amazing stuff on that album. My favorite track is Spirit, with Jewel—yes, that Jewel. It is such a crying shame that this was never released.

Hope you like it.

P.S. We’re Gonna Get Those Bastards will always be free. Feel free to forward to whoever you want.