Episode 21: Conquering the Anger of Impatience, Frustration, & Rash Action

Episode Introduction

• Hey!  Hey! Hey!  Welcome everyone …
• Last week, I interviewed Cadet Jessica Fisher, whose determination to fight for her education and overcome a learning disability, service mindset in using her unique talents and interests to raise money for Filipino fishing villages devastated by Typhoon Haiyan was absolutely inspiring!  If you missed it check it out! 
• Before we get started on this week’s topic, I wanted to give a shout out to my class of 2023 graduates, who commissioned last week as 2^nd Lieutenants in the U.S. Air and Space Forces: To Katy and Alan, Devin and Peter, to Anna and Bella, Jason and Ryly, to Hunter and Justin, Alex and Ella, Catherine and Nick, to Bill and Sam, Ben and Max, to Mack and Brittany, Andrew and Brian, to Joseph and Thomas, Shannon and to all of my other students.  Well done!  Go out into the world and make a difference.  You are needed.  People are waiting for you to show up in their lives with your unique experiences, insights, and gifts.  So aim high and go get ‘em Falcs!
• This week we are talking about the importance of overcoming our anger, impatience, and frustration to prevent rash action.
• So let’s go!

Introduction

• In Chapter 3.2 of Sunzi’s Art of War we read:
• If a general doesn’t conquer his own impatient anger and swarms the enemy prematurely like ants, he will kill one third of his servicemembers and still not take the stronghold.  This spells disaster for an offensive.

將不勝其忿, 而蟻附之, 殺士卒三分之一, 而城不拔者, 此攻之災也。

• The context of this passage remains siege warfare and breaking through enemy strongholds and fortresses.
• Sunzi warns that a must conquer their own angry impatience and frustration and that failure to do so can lead to rash action, which results in massive casualties – even the loss of 1/3 of a general’s forces – without securing the enemy fortress, which spells disaster for an offensive campaign.
• Putting this into more relevant terms for our own lives, as we fight to overthrow our enemy states of mind, those fortresses of enfeebling fear, bastions of belittling beliefs, and strongholds of self-limitation, it takes time and impatience can lead to rash action and regretful behavior that brings hurt and loss into our lives and does not help us achieve our ultimate victory as I discussed in Episode 1.
• Many times, we bring about our own demise, we bring ruin and disaster upon ourselves, through our own impatience with the process or forcing the issue to quickly and doing something rash.  Feelings have been hurt, friendships have been lost, opportunities to serve forfeited, and our objectives still not achieved.
• Patience and preparation are key to besieging our belittling beliefs!

Etymology

• There are many types of anger in Chinese.  In Episode 13: “Three Secret Strategies for Overcoming Our Inner Enemies,” we talked about indignation as a positive form of anger that causes us to stand up in defiance for good causes and stand against injustice!
• However, here Sunzi is talking about rage or resentment that is destructive and dangerous.
• Etymology of 忿 = 分 to divide above a heart 心.  分 depicts a knife dividing things into eight parts.  Taken together, the etymology of anger, resentment or rage is that feeling we get when our hearts are divided – literally cut up.
• Emotionally speaking, impatience, frustration, anger, and resentment cut us up inside.
• The 说文解字 defines fen4 as “impatience” or “rashness,” which is comprised of a heart 忄beside a small, flesh-eating worm 肙, which is comprised of a mouth 口 above flesh 肉.
• What are the angry feelings of impatience, frustration, and resentment that worm their way into and eat away at our hearts and leading us to do rash things?
• Have you ever done something rash?  Something out of impatience and anger?  I know I have.  Too many times.
• Why do we get caught up in rash behavior that can endanger ourselves and others and threaten the very outcome and objective we want in our lives?
• In my experience, this kind of anger often points to one of three things:
  • A wounded heart – a cut up heart that needs to be healed
  • A divided heart – competing priorities where we feel pulled in multiple directions
  • A conflicted heart – mismatched vision and beliefs, where we want something but don’t have the beliefs to support getting it.

A Wounded Heart

• Have you ever come on too strong?  Ever swarmed someone with attention only to send them running in the opposite direction?  Ever been so obsessed with wanting something so badly, wanting it now, that you’ve even becoming angry, impatient, frustrated or resentful that we didn’t have it?  I have.
• Have you ever been triggered by something?  Ever just snapped and taken your anger or frustration out on something only to realize later that you were actually upset about something else entirely?  Too many times for me.
• This sort of outburst, this kind of anger points to a wound – a cut up heart that needs to be addressed and healed.
• Resentment = re à again + sentiment = a feeling.  Resentment is a deep sense of hurt or offense.  Resentment occurs when we experience or think about something that takes us back to a feeling from a former wound or offense.
• If not addressed, these sorts of wounds remain tender and can be easily irritated or inflamed.  There was a time when I suffered from chronic patellar tendinitis in my knee.  It was so bad that even the slightest bump or passing touch from my toddler would literally cause a massive knee-jerk reaction from pain.  It wasn’t my toddler that caused the injury or pain.  Rather, it was the lingering untreated injury in my knee.  Thankfully, after some aggressive treatment, it got better. 
• It is the same way with our hearts.  If we leave our broken hearts untended and our wounded souls unmended then every passing bump or innocent touch can trigger a profound painpoint within and every little thing can become the straw that breaks the camel’s back, which can lead to overreaction and rash action – I know I mastered those.
• Rash action endangers ourselves and others and rarely if ever gets us what we want. Bridal Veil Falls climbing story. …607-foot, double cataract waterfall.

• I don’t even remember what I was so angry and frustrated about today … but I almost died, which thirty years later now I can look back more clearly and see, would not only would have been a pointless and tragic end to my own life that would have caused untold heartbreak and anxiety for my parent’s, grandparents, and my entire family, but it would also have changed the trajectory of so many other people’s lives that I have influenced and interacted with since.  My children wouldn’t have been born.  Countless hours of service, instruction, and mentorship would never have been offered, and even this podcast, which has now reached thousands of listeners in 35 countries would never have existed.  My rash action jeopardized all of that!
• I bring this up not to toot my own horn but to open up possibilities and potentials for all you who are still younger in years and further down the trail of your own life’s journeys.  Just as I had no idea that amazing and wonderful opportunities that awaited me in the decades since that night on the cliffs, the same is true for every single one of you out there listening! 
• That’s why I reiterate … you are powerful beings with a profound purpose on this planet!  You have great gifts to give the world! 

A Divided Heart: Conflicting Priorities Create Resentment

• Returning to the etymology of this type of impatient and frustrated anger as a “divided heart.” 
• Have you ever had to do something but wanted to be doing something else?  Have you ever felt frustrated that something you had to do right now was preventing you from doing something that you really wanted to be doing instead?  Have you ever felt impatient or even resentful when those tasks took longer than we wanted them to?  Have you ever had a day where you had a block of time scheduled for something you were really looking forward to, only to have something pressing schedule over it?  This are exactly what a divided heart feels like.
• As J.K. Rowling has said: “We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.”  Nowhere is this truer than in the human heart.
• In the Gospel of Matthew chapter 6, verse 24, it states: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.” 
• This is a great example of the feelings that emerge when we have a divided heart.  Sometimes we hate having conflicting and competing priorities on our time. 
• 
• Elaborating on this, Canadian theologian A.B. Simpson (1843-1919) has said: “A divided heart loses both worlds.”
• This ties into Stephen R. Covey’s “Time Management Matrix.”  He categorizes tasks into four quadrants: Important or unimportant and urgent or not urgent. 
• One way internal conflict emerges in our lives is when we let unimportant but urgent tasks fill up our days leaving no time for what is important but less urgent. 
• Because as Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), the 34^th President of the United States, observed: “What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.”   
• This is why Stephen R. Covey notes that: “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” 
• When we let unimportant but urgent matters from one priority dictate our lives for too long, especially at the expense of something that is important but less urgent, that is the breeding ground for resentment, impatience, and frustration.
• There are lots of other impacts:
• As attorney turned New Mexico senator Joe Cervantes said: “A heart that is divided will shatter and break.”
• David Starry said: “A divided heart will lead to a distracted heart.” 
• Impatience = unwillingness to wait and work for what we want, which can lead to rash action when we have a sense of desperation.
• Desperation is often rooted in a belief that we are going to miss out and lose what we want, that things are going to fall apart or go sideways if we don’t secure our desired outcome right now!  Desperation is often just insecurity in disguise.

A Conflicted Heart

• In Episode 2, I mentioned that often when we set out in pursuit of our “Big Deals” we may have the vision to accomplish our grand endeavors, but we may lack the beliefs to do so.
• In Episode 9, “What’s it Going to Cost Me?” I mentioned the importance of “raising the bar” on our beliefs because in order to achieve something new in our lives, we have to first believe that we can receive.  
• Today, I want to add another piece to this, which is what sometimes happens when we lack the beliefs to support our dreams, goals, and “Big Deals.”
• What happens when our beliefs are misaligned with our goals?  That’s when we feel conflicted.  That’s when we settle for less than in our lives.  That’s when we suffer from the “Yes buts” I introduced in Episode 17: “Three Principles for Achieving the Ultimate (Personal) Victory in Life!”
• When we hold beliefs about ourselves, each other, and the world – either consciously or subconsciously – that conflict with our deepest soul yearnings, we feel conflicted – and that inner conflict can create feelings of bitterness, anger, resentment, and even rash action.
• For example: scarcity … victimhood … martyrdom
• When we unwittingly, unknowingly, or subconsciously cling to disempowering, limiting, and belittling beliefs that we either embraced or accepted earlier in life as the “God’s truth,” we create the enemy states of mind that I discussed in Episode 18: “Four Steps to Attack Your Day.”
• Think about the inner turmoil and conflict that is created when we really want something in our lives but subconsciously don’t believe we are capable or deserving of achieving it.

Conclusion

• It’s time to heal our hearts from all the old wounds we’re carrying around. 
• It’s time to get clear on our priorities and intentional in scheduling our time.
• It’s beyond time to align our beliefs with our “Big Deals.”