Why Is Everyone So Angry?
You're sitting at a red light, and it turns green. In the millisecond before you step on the gas, the guy behind you honks his horn and makes an obscene gesture at you. You're with a bunch of people when someone mentions the name, "Hillary," so then people's faces turn red and hate spews out of their mouths. Or, you're with people when someone says, "George Bush," and hate spews out of their mouths. The waitress mistakenly brings you your hamburger with the tomato you didn't want, and you react as if the burger were covered with hemlock. Why are people so mad these days?
I guess I was motivated to write this column because of two things. The first was my seeing a sign in the driveway of a church that read, "This Space For Pastor Only. All Other Cars Will Be Towed!!!!" It was the underline and the four exclamation points that got to me. I understand that the pastor was probably tired of people parking in his space. But as I tried to read between the lines, I didn't see him saying, "Look, I really need to park here, so please park somewhere else." Instead, I saw someone who was angry and fed up, whose attitude was, "You'd better not park in my space or I'll have your *!@!* car towed." And this was from a pastor — about a parking space.
The second thing was a comment someone made in the "blog" section at the bottom of one of my columns. A reader wrote to me, "Just do the country a favor and shoot yourself." Is it just me, or does that seem a tad bit of an overreaction to a column about a proposed Harry Potter amusement park?
Did that reader really think that my opinions have any effect on the condition of our country? And did he really want me to commit suicide because of my views on an amusement park? Probably not. In all likelihood — I hope — he was using hyperbole. Maybe he was in a bad mood before he read the column, or maybe some things I wrote just rubbed him the wrong way. But how angry does someone have to be to write something like that?
And "Mr. Go Shoot Yourself" is not atypical. Surf the Internet for a second or two, and you'll see the venom pouring out from those who verbally attack each other. Listen to talk radio, and you can almost hear the blood pressure rising from those speaking about immigration or gas prices or the ending of the last episode of "The Sopranos." Some angry drivers in California recently became so impatient with the progress of a freeway's repairs, that they actually started aiming their cars at the highway workers.
So, what's going on? Where did all this anger and impatience come from? Why are so many people walking around with such short fuses? Is it the war that everybody wishes were over? Is it still a reaction to 9/11? I wouldn't rule out these possibilities. Daily expressions of anger could be symptoms of the anxious times we live in. Perhaps people are living in a constant state of tension and fear about the world. But we feel frustrated and angry because we don't know what we can do to change things. And these feelings have to go somewhere, so we vent our anger at the old lady in front of us in the grocery store express line who has 11 items instead of 10.
If it's understandable for us to be tense and angry these days, what can we do about it? Well, while we pressure world leaders to make this a safer planet, we can at least take a deep breath now and then to calm down. Of course, when we take those deep breaths, we'll be breathing air that's being polluted by corporations that don't care if they're poisoning us! They only care about making money!! And they're among the most despicable entities in the history of the world!!!! Sorry about that outburst. Sometimes I just get so angry.
Lloyd Garver has written for many television shows, ranging from "Sesame Street" to "Family Ties" to "Frasier." He has also read many books, some of them in hardcover. You wanna make something of it?
By Lloyd Garver
Copyright 2009 CBS. All rights reserved. I guess I was motivated to write this column because of two things. The first was my seeing a sign in the driveway of a church that read, "This Space For Pastor Only. All Other Cars Will Be Towed!!!!" It was the underline and the four exclamation points that got to me. I understand that the pastor was probably tired of people parking in his space. But as I tried to read between the lines, I didn't see him saying, "Look, I really need to park here, so please park somewhere else." Instead, I saw someone who was angry and fed up, whose attitude was, "You'd better not park in my space or I'll have your *!@!* car towed." And this was from a pastor — about a parking space.
The second thing was a comment someone made in the "blog" section at the bottom of one of my columns. A reader wrote to me, "Just do the country a favor and shoot yourself." Is it just me, or does that seem a tad bit of an overreaction to a column about a proposed Harry Potter amusement park?
Did that reader really think that my opinions have any effect on the condition of our country? And did he really want me to commit suicide because of my views on an amusement park? Probably not. In all likelihood — I hope — he was using hyperbole. Maybe he was in a bad mood before he read the column, or maybe some things I wrote just rubbed him the wrong way. But how angry does someone have to be to write something like that?
And "Mr. Go Shoot Yourself" is not atypical. Surf the Internet for a second or two, and you'll see the venom pouring out from those who verbally attack each other. Listen to talk radio, and you can almost hear the blood pressure rising from those speaking about immigration or gas prices or the ending of the last episode of "The Sopranos." Some angry drivers in California recently became so impatient with the progress of a freeway's repairs, that they actually started aiming their cars at the highway workers.
So, what's going on? Where did all this anger and impatience come from? Why are so many people walking around with such short fuses? Is it the war that everybody wishes were over? Is it still a reaction to 9/11? I wouldn't rule out these possibilities. Daily expressions of anger could be symptoms of the anxious times we live in. Perhaps people are living in a constant state of tension and fear about the world. But we feel frustrated and angry because we don't know what we can do to change things. And these feelings have to go somewhere, so we vent our anger at the old lady in front of us in the grocery store express line who has 11 items instead of 10.
If it's understandable for us to be tense and angry these days, what can we do about it? Well, while we pressure world leaders to make this a safer planet, we can at least take a deep breath now and then to calm down. Of course, when we take those deep breaths, we'll be breathing air that's being polluted by corporations that don't care if they're poisoning us! They only care about making money!! And they're among the most despicable entities in the history of the world!!!! Sorry about that outburst. Sometimes I just get so angry.
Lloyd Garver has written for many television shows, ranging from "Sesame Street" to "Family Ties" to "Frasier." He has also read many books, some of them in hardcover. You wanna make something of it?
By Lloyd Garver
A few years of constant, unrelenting attack, and you'd be mad too!
But in terms of identifying the causes so that we can improve the situation, I'm still not sure what the solutions are. Like I agree with most all the factors mentioned by others - 9/11, the do-nothing political machine (including Bush's lying/corruption/intolerance/incompetence), rising costs and increased competition, our fast-paced lifestyles, celebrity worship, culture of entitlement, shock jocks, greed, etc. BUT with most of those factors being outside our control, does it really help to change our quality of life to cite them or make us feel even less in control?
I've tried doing some of the things other people have suggested - like tried to cultivate more gratitude, be kinder to others, just let people cut in front of me, etc. It only works for a while before I start to feel like I'm not getting anything back in return and say screw it. I don't really pay much attention to when people suggest the world would be better off if everybody in my profession would go commit suicide, but I do seem to notice how frequently I'm called an idiot for doing stuff like not starting the car fast enough when the light turns green, etc.
"...we all live in much manufactured fear."
Posted by HangBush
Yea, it's manufactured by low wage workers in China.
This quote couldn't be more appropriate for all the americans. In today's society we all live in much manufactured fear.
Everyone is so angry about being ripped off by Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance.
It's just the kicking and screaming of the middle class being dragged into poverty.
I think it comes from the stress we live with. We are fighting a war on two fronts, and if Cheney has his way, we'll be in a 3rd conflict. We are unable to understand the thinking behind the Iraq conflict, and deeply resent the lies that were told by this administration.
We see a president who is so obtuse that he is unable to understand even simple things. He refuses to listen to anyone, and doesn't give a d a m n about what the citizens of this country think.
We hear about 'the war on terror' while we see the inundation of illegals across our borders. Now, most of us aren't stupid, so we realize 'the war on terror' is only against those whom the administration deems to be terrorists -- not the ones who actually are such. We also see this administration attempting to make this country into a dictatorship by stooping to eavesdropping on conversations, spying on e-mail correspondence as well as snail mail, imprisoning people without due process, etc. etc. etc.
We bear the burden of trying to keep up with costs that are skyrocketing daily. Thousands upon thousands are losing everything & taking bankruptcy.
These are only a few of the reasons that I can think of for the anger that is fast escalating out of control.