Living free | Regaining Freedom - The Authentic Life

The Gift of Anger

Your anger is a gift.

Zack de la Rocha (Rage Against The Machine)

Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.

Malcolm X

Quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it? That’s what it is to be a slave!

Blade Runner (1982)

Slavery is a metaphor for a person who is not in control of their own life, but has their choices made for them. A man decides, a slave obeys.

The slave can have two internal responses to his situation. He can be sad, and passively accept it, but mourn inside, yearning for a better world. The outcome is no change. Emotion is directed inwards, leaving the outer world untouched. Not daring to express outrage, fear constrains the slave to internalise their problems.

The other response is anger. Anger means directing emotional energy outwards, towards making positive change. Anger is forceful non-acceptance of the status quo. It mobilises and catalyses individual resources towards change. Anger overcomes the constraints of fear, resulting in action.

Dealing with the Boss From Hell

We’ve all worked with the boss from hell. There are lots of types – the incompetent chair warmer, the obstructor, the ice cold backstabber, the teflon coated blame shifter, the psychopathic manipulator, the game player, the obnoxious person who is lacking in common decency or basic social skills, or combinations of these nasty traits. There is one thing in common – their ability to inflict misery on you at work.

Most organisations would rather pay the price for the boss from hell than throw them on the corporate scrapheap where they belong. So how do you deal with the boss who makes turning up to work something that you dread? Read on to find out what I did.

Moving From Consumer to Producer

We live in a culture that venerates consumerism – the cult of consumption. At the same time, if we only consumer what others provide, we up alienated and disempowered, leaving us feeling empty inside. The consumer culture keeps us on the treadmill, working our lives away, and at the end we are left with some gadgets that end up being put in a dumpster, and second hand ideas scavenged from Hollywood movies.

This posting is about moving from being a blind consumer of good and ideas produced by others – buying whatever is advertised, to someone who makes up their own mind on what they buy, and not only that, produces their own ideas and goods and participates in the market on their own terms as an equal. Read on to find out more.

The Penalty of Leadership

In life there are the people who innovate, achieve and create the good things that we enjoy, and there are those who never measure up, know that they don’t and instead try to pull others down to their level of mediocrity.

Time and Money – Leaving the Rat Race Behind

You’ve probably heard the expression that time is money. This article is about how the free person needs to break the link between the two – so that time is time and money is money – and leave the rat race behind.

The term “rat race” evokes an image of the lab rat furiously running through a maze which ultimately leads nowhere. Similarly, linking time and money means not enough of either, and just enough to survive.

That Was Then, This Is Now

This posting is about leaving behind irrelevant outmoded ideas and ways, and being adaptable enough to survive and thrive in today (rather than yesterday’s world).