When anger is the motivation for good

It sucks to think of life this way, but sometimes the best way to get people to take it seriously is to get royally pissed off.

Pissed off with a righteous anger about needs that are being neglected. Changes that need to be made, but no one is willing to take the first step. Time that is being wasted, and can never be gotten back. Sometimes you need to get angry in order to make something happen.

If I could list every injustice in the world that makes me angry, and dedicated my life to fixing them, I'd go insane. Everyone should care and be furious about children going to bed hungry at night, poor people dying of diseases that are easily curable, and wars that are being fought over differing beliefs. But not everyone's lives are personally affected by those things enough to get off their asses and dedicate their lives to fixing them. Sometimes people need to see and feel things directly in order to do something.

I've thought about this a lot, and here are the things that get me royally PO'd, that are directly related to experiences I've had:

Being stereotyped

Being judged before anyone can get to know you

Developing prejudice against an entire group of people, based off ONE bad encounter with a person who happens to be from said group

When women choose to stay trapped in unhealthy, abusive relationships with men because they truly believe that it's a better alternative to being alone

Men who think they can use said women as a means to satisfy selfish "urges" that are only temporary, not really giving a shit if it ruins a woman's life

Using the phrase "I love you" to manipulate rather than encourage and build up

Refusing to educate one's self on things that could make them more well-rounded and less ignorant

Sugar-coating the truth

Half-hearted apologies

The list could go on and on. If I could choose any of these examples as my "life purpose" to make the world better, I'd have to think a lot more. Not all of these are as severe as world hunger and senseless violence, but I think many of the world's problems originate in many of these circumstances. The idea is to start small and build progress slowly, not try to tackle everything at once and make yourself crazy. The worst consequence of that is losing all faith in the possibility for improvement and accomplishing nothing but wallowing in misery. That makes me angry too, but it's difficult to avoid sometimes.

I don't want to sound as if the ONLY way to be motivated to change the world is to get angry. But that's how Mother Teresa did it. Starving children in Calcutta made her furious, and look at her now.

What angers you, and what will you do about it?