On the way to church yesterday, I saw a bumper sticker that said \u201cif you aren\u2019t outraged you aren\u2019t paying attention.\u201d No other stickers on the car, no indication if he was outraged from the left or from the right. This being Texas you\u2019d assume from the right, but this was in Denton, so who knows.<\/p>\n
Regardless of which side of the political \/ religious \/ environmental \/ whatever debates you\u2019re on, being outraged is a lousy way to go through life.<\/p>\n
First of all, it\u2019s not healthy. Rage is an extreme form of stress, and stress makes the heart work harder and increases blood pressure. That\u2019s good if you\u2019re in a fight or flight situation, but for the vast majority of us the vast majority of the time, all it accomplishes is raising your chances of an eventual heart attack or stroke.<\/p>\n
Being outraged doesn\u2019t attract uninterested or uncommitted folks to your side. Oh sure, your passion may attract a few people who already think like you do, but all that does is grow the choir you\u2019re preaching to. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s sadly true that negative campaigning and identity politics is an effective way to win elections, but how well is that working for actually governing and changing society \u2013 for either side? Bush wasn\u2019t a Nazi and Obama isn\u2019t a socialist. When you give your opponents such radical labels, it makes cooperating with them for the common good far more difficult. And once you turn the \u201cthey\u2019re evil, EVIL I tell you!\u201d knob all the way up, what do you have left when you encounter someone who\u2019s far worse?<\/p>\n
Anger and its extreme form, rage, have a legitimate moral purpose. That purpose is to move us to compassion. The purpose of compassion is to move us to action. If we don\u2019t move from anger to compassion, we\u2019re hurting ourselves. And if we don\u2019t move from compassion to action, we\u2019re not doing any tangible good. <\/p>\n
So skip the outrage and its feelings of moral superiority. If you don\u2019t like the way things are, DO something to make them better. We\u2019ll all be better off.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the way to church yesterday, I saw a bumper sticker that said \u201cif you aren\u2019t outraged you aren\u2019t paying attention.\u201d No other stickers on the car, no indication if he was outraged from the left or from the right. This being Texas you\u2019d assume from the right, but this was in Denton, so who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n