Anger is extremely motivational; at least it is for me.
When situations manage to really get under my skin and push me close or over that breaking point, it's as if some deep reserves of energy, focus and determination open up inside of me. At points like that, nothing will stop me from finishing what I want to do. If someone's to blame for me getting that angry, they had best run because this raged-motivation has been a source for me carrying my revenge on that person.
I know my ex-roomie is one person who was once the cause and ultimate target of my angry motivation. I recall I also once tried to strangle Tim until he passed out, for waking me up by rubbing his balls on my face...
But, this post isn't about them! - it's about me and my recent brief experience of tapping that dangerous source of motivational power.
Last week I attempted the 7-day
Great Ocean Walk, a ~100km hiking and camping trek along the ocean's edge, south-west of Melbourne. I was doing it on my own. I had all the my food, water, clothes and equipment in my backpack and I would be carrying it the whole way with me.
The first day I started hiking, everything was beautiful, but every day after that was rain. My jacket and basic supply of clothes were decent quality, and I was managing to myself and my things relatively dry, but I can only do that successfully for so long. Into the 4th day of my trek, I was getting a little frustrated.
I was trying to double-time my hike so that I could get to the end of the track an additional day early - I had already managed to walk 5 days worth of distance in only 4 days. On that 4th day. the rain was manageable in the morning, but then it started getting a lot heavier in the afternoon just as I had to do a 2 km hike across an open, shelter-less beach. Since no vegetation for shelter on a beach = getting incredibly soaked, I decided to pull out my tent's tarp and attached it to some trees to give me a nice shelter to wait out the worst of the storm; no point in getting more soaked for no reason.
So I waited for the rain to cut down a bit.
....And I waited....
....and waited.
Two hours of sitting under my make-shift roof, attempting to pretend I was still interested in my book was enough: I needed to move.
The rain finally cut down slightly, so I decided this was my chance. I pulled down my tarp and decided to wrap it around me as added protection from the rain on the open beach.
10 minutes into my beach crossing, I thought my tarp-jacket idea was amazing - and then it started: the weather gods gave me the big finger. The wind picked up incredibly against me, turning my tarp into a kite that was pulling me in the opposite direction of my hike. The rain also become really intense, so I didn't want to put away the tarp. I tried hurrying across the beach but walking on sand with a giant backpack is hard, especially with the water-bogged sand.
The sheer force of the wind was pulling against the tarp to strong that it ripped the tarp into pieces, even as I held onto it. Without the tarp's protection, the clothes I was wearing and everything in my bag was being saturated with water. I also realized that with a shredded tarp, there was no chance that I would be getting any sleep as the water would seeped through my tent.
As I finally got close to the end of the beach, I saw there was now river crossing - an unbridged river crossing that I had to wade through. I wasn't about to stop and think about it - I just jumped into the water, walked through the river to the other side and followed the signs.
The closest camp site was suppose to be right after the beach, but it turns out it was at the top of a practically tree-less, water-drenched hill. So I walked up a muddy hill, still being harassed by the wind and rain, with pieces of my shredded tarp across my body in an attempt to ward off the rain.
During the whole hour-long ordeal, all I could do was yell out to myself
"Are you fucking kidding me!?" over and over, while keep walking.
Finally, I got to the camp site and walked over to wooden shelter, the only real dry area left where some other hikers were sitting.
I tried to keep calm, but I was pissed. I felt like every possible natural element had conspired against me. As I tried to relax, I realized that I hadn't taken into account of everything the wind and rain had done: As I took off my shoes, I realized the dye of the utterly drenched green shoes has run and dyed my socks and feet green. Wanting to take a bittersweet photo, I took out my camera and realized that somehow during the beach crossing, the camera had been broken and no longer worked.
Wanting to keep calm, I told myself to look through my bag to find my extra [hopefully dry] shirt. With the bag wide open, the wind suddenly gusted, lifted up the shirt I was eyeing, flew it through the air and sailed it off the cliff, over the ocean.
Another hiker soon came over to me and said:
"Wow, I was watching you from the lookout of the beach - you sure moved fast across that beach!"
I looked at her, took a deep breath, faked a smile and replied:
"Ya...I felt motivated."I slowly walked over to my packed-up tent & shredded up tarp, whilst considered throwing them off the same cliff, into the ocean, just to be done with it all.
Oh man, I was feeling ssssssssoooooooooooooooooooooooo angry....and motivated.
This was drawn by Mike. It says rigamortis boner. I laughed a lot.
