Your Anger Can Transform Adversities Into Opportunities

 

Anger: A Human Emotion

We all have grown considering anger as a bad or negative emotion, in best of our knowledge. We feel good while talking about happiness, love, enthusiasm and achievements but talking about anger feels like something morally wrong or destructive and the reason is our social, cultural and religious beliefs often manifest anger as destruction and violence. So the youngsters are always taught to suppress or kill their anger and not to express it. In doing so, we forget that anger is a human emotion just like any other emotions such as joy or contentment but we never pay heed to its valuable impacts and benefits on human life and society as a whole. You get angry when you feel like things are out of place and that anger propels you to correct everything around you and motivates you to find solutions of the disorder and chaos in your life. You get angry when you see something wrong happening either with you or the people you feel connected to; your connectivity can be for people worldwide if you are an empathetic person. And it’s pretty natural to have anger, if you really care for your own being as well as others.

Anger Helps You Fight Your Fears

Your anger is the only weapon that can protect you from being subjected to any wrong. It helps you rise over all your fears. It makes you more informed and aware of your powers to help you adapt a better response. Anger is much required for survival and embedded in human mind to protect us and sharpen our focus. Whenever you feel threatened or attacked it is activated and drives you to fight back, act quickly and conquer the battles. Anger gives enough strength and aggression to overpower a stronger enemy and acts as a guiding force to fight our fears and transform adversities into Opportunities.

Anger doesn’t mean harboring resentment against people and waiting for the right moment to retaliate; anger is expressing and showing your disagreement and protest against the wrong. Often anger is mistaken for impulsive behavior, angry outbursts, holding grudges and accumulating bad thoughts. Anger instills optimism and give you bigger dreams to realize, it encourages you to have faith in yourself because whenever you are angry you think of channelizing your maximum powers against whatever angers you.

Anger Promotes Our Actions Against Injustice

It was the revolutionary Bhagat Singh’s anger that electrified a strong militancy in India in the 1930s and triggered a nationwide stir against the oppressive British rule. His anger to vindicate the honor of  a great nationalist, Lala Lajpat Rai, in fact the honor of  the  nation made him a hero in each and every town of Punjab as well as the rest of the northern India. His slogan, ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ still reverberates in every Indian heart and brims it with patriotism and love for motherland. It was the anger of Mangal Pandey that sparked the Indian Revolt of 1857 and united the whole nation to begin the fight against slavery and exploitation. When he felt his religious feelings were hurt due to the new cartridges, he didn’t hesitate in raising his voice against and spearheaded the ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ which eventually intensified the anger and agitation among Indians leading to the first War of Indian Independence.

Anger is triggered when you are denied justice or your basic rights. Anger helps you when to Trust Your Instincts and tells you something isn’t right and need to be corrected immediately. Standing up for yourself always makes you a victor, not a victim; your anger unveils the secret of your own power and determines how extreme you can go to fight against injustice. The people with a productive anger can only withstand the test of time as anger gives you the ability to wade through the unpredictable challenges of disrespect, humiliation and exploitation at both personal and professional fronts. 

Manage Your Anger Don’t Suppress It 

As we have already discussed that anger is a human emotion which can be empowering if managed well. Anything in excess is always bad and the same goes with anger. Anger releases a great amount of energy and if not used productively, it can be destructive. It can spoil your relationships and overall quality of your life.  Do you think you become impulsive when encounter such emotions? Or you breathe deeply and think about the possible solutions and take time to express your disagreement over that situation? It's very important to utilize the energy of anger while maintaining a calm and equipoise demeanor; which is considered one of the strongest social skills these days. If you can’t harness your anger, try to stay quiet for a while and escape the situation if possible. This respite will give you enough time to strategize your plan of action against the circumstances that trigger your anger . 

Remind yourself that getting infuriated is not going to fix anything, start honing your problem solving skills and be resolute and unswerving to your aims. Always remember, anger when released with violence and verbal abuse it vitiates its own powers and leave  one floundering. As Richard Davidson says, “Anger mobilizes resources, increases vigilance, and facilitates the removal of obstacles in the way of our goal pursuits, particularly if the anger can be divorced from the propensity to harm or destroy.”

To conclude, I would say, anger can make you achieve those heights in your career which your talent can’t so learn to harness the infinite energy of your anger and see it can do wonders.

Why Honour Killing in India Requires Urgent Reforms

Honour Killing: An Odius Crime

The recent heinous case of honour killing in Aurangabad, Maharashtra shook the society. The intensity of the rage was evident by the act of victim's younger brother who took selfies after beheading his pregnant elder sister and paraded the severed head of his sister in the locality. It was heart wrenching to know that his mother was the accomplice  in committing this brutal killing.

It was reported that a few months ago, the victim, Kirti, 19, eloped with Ajay, a resident of the same village and got married. When informed about their return to the village, both brother and mother of the victim went to meet her. She welcomed them wholeheartedly; little did she know what the motive of her mother and sibling was. While she was preparing tea and snacks for them, was brutally attacked by her brother by a sickle. Her mother grabbed her legs and the brother chopped her head off. The revenge was not yet over; neither it satiated their malice, the brother took the chopped head and showed it to her neighbors to prove that he had taught a lesson to his sister.

Another case of the same state narrates one more gruesome story when a woman and her husband were set ablaze by her father and other relatives as they were enraged on their inter caste marriage. She succumbed to her burn injuries and the man kept battling for life.

Is this the society we dream of? Is this the society we are proud of? And is this the development we are striving for where human rights have no existence and  personal choices and freedom of thoughts are meant to be crumpled under the feet of so called ‘honour’ of a family? Where atrocities on young couples are considered an important lesson for their decisions of marrying to a person of their choice, and everything is fair in the name of ‘HONOR’.

Honor killing is defined as killing for the sake of honor, a brutal killing that is awarded mostly to a woman or her partner by their own family members for getting married against their wishes. Whose ‘honor’ are we talking about? The honorable murderers or the orthodox elders who think that women’s prime responsibility is only to take care of her family members, doing the daily chores and carry the honour and legacy of the family by accepting the groom that they select for her. A girl of the family carries the dignity by not raising her voice against any wrong done to her while a boy preserves the honour by raising weapons, killing innocent and committing crime; such a wonderful parameter of “Gender Equality” in our society. 

The Factors Responsible for the Crime

In India, majority of caste members do not approve an inter caste marriage, any type of relationship outside their caste or within the same gotra is not allowed and this stereotype gives birth to outrage when young generation defies to follow such orthodox norms set by their elders. On the pretext of preserving the decorum and honour of the family; the crime takes birth. Not just the inter caste marriages, some other reasons like; losing virginity before marriage and tag of love marriage also contribute to such killings. To utter dismay, it can be a casual talk also. A dalit boy of 17 from a farmer’s family in Nagar district was beaten and strangled to death because he was talking to a girl of an upper caste. His body was found hanging from a tree in the village. The increasing cases of honour killing in the recent years is an alarming situation and mockery of the law, as per the data of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 251 murders were reported as honour killing cases in India and more than 300 cases have been reported in recent 3 years.

The barbaric murders in the name of honour not only violate human rights but infringe the integrity of institutions like police and judiciary also. The attitude of zero tolerance in caste matters is the prime factor behind these killings which are posing an impediment to our socio cultural growth and communal harmony. And that makes a strong reason why honour killing in India requires urgent reforms.

The Role of Khap Panchayats

Even after 75 years of independence, people of India are still victims of social evils like honour killing, Casteism and other violence in the name of communal and religious issues. In India, people still think caste is more important than life and under the fear of losing certain privileges of that particular caste; they choose to kill their own children instead of supporting them. Despite the rule by the Supreme Court that none can intervene in a happy married life of two adults, Khap Panchayats practice the ruthless administration in the villages where there is an absence of structured legislation and people are illiterate and not aware of their rights to freedom and constitutional rights to safeguard themselves from any kind of exploitation. Due to the inaccessible and fragile existence of law and order, these Khap Panchayats flourish in our country and still have the authority to declare punishments and settle dispute among them. These Khap leaders enjoy the power and supremacy by becoming the custodians of the honour of the entire clan and feel no hesitation in giving death penalty to those young couples who marry as per their choice.

A Ray of Hope

Many laws have been amended and government took strict action to curb this crime in Indian society yet we have to go miles. People need to understand the proverb stated by Justice Dipak Mishra, “Liberty, taking the word in its practical sense means the right to choose.” So it’s the need of the hour to change the perspective of considering caste and gotra above human life. Many NGOs have come forward to fight against this social evil and helped young couples.  They provide legal guidance, financial support and safe houses to these tormented couples. They even provide assistance for marriage solemnization and registration.

But will that suffice to curb this ghastly crime, certainly not; the problem is not with the generation gap and the freedom of choices, the problem is the mindset, the taboo which casts a shadow over the budding dreamers and beating hearts who just want a safe and happy life and a life partner of their own choice. Do you still think; they are wrong?

Let’s wait together for the dawn that will witness the cessation of such atrocities on innocent lives.

When Things Go Wrong in Life, Trust Your Instincts

Talk to Yourself-Trust Your Instincts

The ability of realizing what’s right for you when everything is going wrong is the trust that you have in your instincts. And this ability always leads you towards a concrete decision and a fruitful action in your life. The people who answer their inner calls always succeed because it keeps their instincts alive and that’s the only way forward. Former international cricketer and captain of Indian cricket team, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is one of the best examples of the people who pursued their passion with an unwavering trust in their instincts. Undeterred, he weathered all the difficulties with the unquenched zest for his sport while following his instincts. Though his father never liked his growing interest in cricket as he believed there was no future in sports, Mahi remained firm about what he wanted from his life. After completing High School, he started looking for a job so that he could fund his sporting and luckily got selected for the role of a ticket collector at the Kharagpur Railway Station because the SER (South Eastern Railways) cricket team was looking for a wicketkeeper.

At this point, life became very tough for him; he would run all day at the platforms and practiced at training nets, in the late evenings. He was swinging between his passion for cricket and his job in railways. Three years passed, but he kept balancing everything as he knew that his heart was beating for the cricket ground only. He was confident, his instincts would not deceive him and finally his determination and hard work paid off when he was selected in Indian Cricket Team for an ODI series against Bangladesh. Rest is History!

Your instincts have infinite powers to prepare you for any battle; they show you the right way to deal with the obstructions and guide you when to change your perspective about such seemingly insurmountable hurdles in your life. It is beautifully quoted by Martin Luther King Jr., ”As my sufferings mounted, I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.” These words clearly express the momentous influence our instincts have on our action when faced with difficulties, worries and adversities. They will determine whether to fall in the trap of anger, hurt, uncertainty, revenge, disappointment and sadness or to emerge as a fighter, a warrior and eventually a winner.

 

"It’s very important to observe, how you talk to yourself, because you are sure to be listening to it." Making affirmations about your capabilities and accepting your weaknesses are also very important in decision-making. Introspecting feels like journeying into the deeper realms of your core which opens a way to self-realization and helps you handle your expectations.

Be Willing to do the Undesired also:

There are many who feel annoyed when forced to do something against their wish; it can be a new assignment or a responsibility that they don’t like to do or feel this is going to demean position. They assume that people are trying to undermine their worth and that very moment an emptiness creeps in them and finally they choose either to escape or to step back. It becomes galling when they start feeling as there’s nothing left to do for them now. Let's try the same with a different perspective, doing something that doesn’t fall in your list of choice can make you more resilient and teach you something that you could never ever Learn while walking on the usual path of your life. Moreover, one can explore new vistas and scale new heights while doing the undesired. One should always remember; “There is a light at the end of every tunnel. Some tunnels just happen to be longer than others.” Ordinary people keep doing the ordinary things in their usual way but successful people never build any Comfort Zone for them, they nurture themselves more when things fall apart and do everything with great happiness they are expected to and never hesitate in undertaking arduous tasks.

What’s Wrong V/S Who’s Wrong

Whenever problems fall upon us we start blaming others for conspiring against us. We think that all the problems in our life are because of the people around us, we never pay attention on what’s going wrong, so when you feel thing are not turning up the way you were expecting; you must reflect on your own life to find- What’s wrong? Blame games and complaints will ruin your mental peace and deplete your consciousness. You will become revengeful and end up in the frustrating phase of your life. Always believe that every experience or situation in life, good or bad, comes with their own rewards and such positive attitude will give you strength to stay calm and gain control on your mind during the toughest times of your life. Focus on mend what’s wrong instead of blaming and targeting people when things are going topsy-turvy in your life.

Never Wait for the Right Time, Do it Right Now:

I have heard many people speaking about their future plans or resolutions to begin when met with certain conditions or waiting for the right time. I never understand what is a ‘right time’ to start something right in one’s life. It’s your resolution or passion that is important and every moment is the perfect moment to begin something in life and the best time is NOW. Procrastination kills potential even in the most skilled professionals, learn to make the maximum use of your talents and never wait for the right opportunities to fall your way, convert every single option into a right opportunity for you. Talk to yourself when in dilemma, you are the best advisor of yourself. 

Let's follow this simple formula of life: When Things Go Wrong in Life, Trust Your Instincts.