I see anger in my life as the fuel to move me into action. But hate, it immobilizes you. It takes away creativity. Someone asked, “What’s the difference between anger and hate?” Everyone is angry. Dr. King was an angry man. Gandhi was an angry man. Mother Teresa was an angry woman. The difference, the thing that distinguishes the great angry person from a villain is that those who are angry, when you’re able to tap into that anger, use it for good. Hitler was an angry man, but his anger turned to hate and he was able to unleash that.
So when you’re talking about great men and women of our time or times before us, the one thing that they have in common is that they were all angry. But there was a group of them who decided, “I’m going to transform my anger into something great.” And there is another group that decides, “I will let this turn into hate, and that gangrene in my heart will let me do unto those the same thing that I am upset about in the first place.” So, anger is a normal thing. It’s like water. It’s fluid. That’s what I’m teaching my students.