How Angry Are you?

Anyone can be angry but you must be angry enough to improve. An article on Ezinearticles.com said this concerning anger:

“Angry people have a certain perception and expectation of the world that they live in and when that reality does not meet their expectation of it, then they become angry.” (Tristan Loo, What Causes Anger?)

It seems that anger is synonymous with displeasure. When it surfaces, it aggressively attempts to interrupt or punish the source of the displeasure. What is noteworthy is that perception has much to do with describing the emotion of anger. Perception provokes a feeling. For example, why is it that a woman could step on her husband’s eyeglasses and upset him. But if he found that she stepped on his glasses because she had accidentally set herself on fire, he might be less prone to accuse her of malicious intent. In other words, he would not be mad at his burning wife because he perceives that she was merely trying to put herself out when she stepped on his foot. Perception matters.
I learned this truth not playing basketball and found that anger is as common as breathing. It is said that anger impedes domination by providing us an internal gauge for how much “crap” we will actually take. But I offer this. Anger in its truest sense must prompt one to actively improve himself and his environment. Anger is a common emotion that I remember experiencing in sports as early as about age 8. We have it as babies, undoubtedly exhibited through tantrums, but I never noticed how much it involved perception until I played college basketball.
By the time I was a sophomore in college, I had anger associated with self-validation that was six years in the making. In high school I only played quality minutes as a senior. That means I sat the bench for three years and then finally got to play. The more athletic I became, the less I understood about my inability to secure playing time and this is where discontent turned into anger.
My anger symptoms consisted mainly of resentment, apathy and diminished concentration. I hated my teammates and coach, pretended not to care about team objectives and found it difficult to learn in practice. I perceived that somehow I was destined to fail. It was as if the entire world knew I was a horrible basketball player masquerading as an effective one. The fear was that maybe I really did think I was better than I actually was. I could see myself being a fraud and this sickened me. However, before long I discovered that I could not be a fraud if I was “capable”. I would learn in college that capability is not defined by minutes played but by effort in competing, time in preparation and precision in execution.
As a sophomore looking to develop over the summer before my junior season three things became a physical priority: 1. ball handling, 2. Shooting and 3. Agility. I dribbled, shot and worked out more than any of the previous years before a season but was met with disappointment at the start of the regular season. The less I played the angrier I got and the more determined I became to add superior skills to my basketball repertoire. An interesting reality check always occurs when you have the control to attain what is needed but instead only get angry. The reality check involves your motives and questions whether or not you are disappointed or vested in changing what you perceived is wrong. Anger is an impetus meant to inspire and protect. If we are not willing to improve ourselves and our environments (i.e. social, work, home, etc.) then we are unfit to be angry. Anger is an intense emotion that accompanies the release of adrenaline in some instances (???). Anger can inflict misery but it can also provide a catalyst for necessary change. This revelation led me to alter how I processed anger.
In lieu of detracting from the team, I decided that I would hone and utilize my skills to become a dominant practice player. Could I improve the quickness of my first step so that my drive to the basket was indefensible? Could I make eighty percent of my shots in drills and 50 percent with someone guarding me? Could I guard players heavier than me by improving footwork and hand positioning? Personal challenges became channels for my anger. I truly competed against myself and over the remainder of my basketball career, I attempted to win the battle of useless vs. useful anger. How about your anger? Is it useful or useless?