Dear Vix: I’m angry all the time – about everything and everyone - The Independent

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.

I’m walking around full of rage, all the time, at the moment. It gets sparked by little things: someone pushing in at the front of a queue, or not waiting their turn in a supermarket. Some guy cut me up in a car park at a retail outlet the other day and I swear to God, I could’ve got out of my car and started something! It was only fear that stopped me.

I’m sick to death of the selfishness of others. I keep seeing examples of people being narcissistic and taking the p**s, or someone taking advantage of someone else’s kindess or naivety – and it drives me absolutely insane. I can’t seem to get over it.

But it’s also bigger than that. When I see something small happening, it sets me off – then I watch the news and see it on a wider scale: Trump clearly not giving a s**t that he’s bombing innocent people; praising his billionaire mates while everyone else suffers and can’t pay for fuel. Putin and Netanyahu and the far-right, rubbing their hands with glee – I just feel sick about all of it, all of the time.

I feel like I keep waking up into a nightmare. This world is a nightmare. I hate it all.

Oh boy, do I hear you. It’s hard not to feel angry in the face of global, political selfishness, of increasing isolationism – in the transparent way we are all being coerced to turn our anger away from the political elite and towards each other.

It’s no surprise at all to me that the powerful men in thrall to billionaires keep telling us we should turn on each other: they lie to us and tell us to blame migrants and refugees, to blame the desperate. They don’t want us looking at the real source of the problem: austerity. Something they can’t – and aren’t prepared to – solve. Keeping us angry with each other is their great “win”.

That’s the big picture, but it trickles down to exactly the way you are feeling at the moment: frustrated and enraged with what appears as selfishness and narcissism all around us. I don’t just blame those in political power for that, but the tech giants, too: with their dangerous algorithms, their commodification of our lives through social media platforms. In fact, I’ve begun to resent it. I share your rage. And I have come to the conclusion that I can only do what is in my personal power to do: reject it.

But what if anger could also be a force for good? What if anger was an entirely rational and – indeed – necessary, propulsive force, something to shake us out of our collective apathy? What if we were entirely right to be angry: if the only logical response to the decisions being made, every day, by the people who lead us, is anger? Just look at why the Paris protests started: thousands of people, making their anger known. Taking to the streets. Just look at the way anger among British women has reached a record high – there are good reasons for that.

And even if we don’t all express things in the exact same way, we can still find a common thread: action. Even “just” for ourselves, within the scope of our own lives.

There’s a very good way of reframing anger that I think might just make you feel better (though please know that my usual advice applies: that if you are feeling very down, very resentful and unable to get on with everyday life because of your feelings, then please consider talking it through with your GP or in therapy. There are also practical tips on reducing anger if it feels unbearable here). It’s expressed beautifully in this book by Sam Parker: Good Anger. Sam says: “The world is an angry place, but the answer is not to wring our hands or look the other way, but start a new conversation around what anger is for.”

Sam, who advocates for identifying and expressing anger before it has boiled over into aggression, says that anger is persistently labelled as a “negative” emotion, but that its real purpose is to “direct us towards a change we need to make in our lives”. He also says this, which I find both profound and incredibly useful: “Anger is a healthy response to a world that does not always have our best interests in mind and is even, on occasion, invested in our downfall.”

So, what I’d urge you to do is this: identify the source, if you possibly can, of your anger. Is there a common theme, or source, or quality, in all of the micro-behaviours you’ve described in your letter? Is it anger at “selfishness”? And could you set yourself a challenge: to combat selfishness in your own life by (for example) seeking out those who are doing the opposite, by volunteering to help those in need – a food bank, a homelessness shelter, a refugee charity? We already know, after all, that volunteering not only helps the recipients, but the givers – through improved wellbeing, improved confidence and self-esteem, and better social connections.

I’m reminded of one of my favourite poems: “Small Kindnesses”, by Danusha Laméris: “Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.”

I have a feeling that if you start acting in the opposite way to the behaviour you abhor, you’ll start seeing many more examples of people doing their very best for humanity – and who are working to help others. It might even restore your faith in others. And you’ll be contributing to that.

Do you have a problem you would like to raise anonymously with Dear Vix? Issues with love, relationships, family and work? Email dearvix@independent.co.uk