Before my teen years, I was losing my hearing pretty quickly

Evelyn Glennie once spoke with naked honesty: "Before my teen years, I was losing my hearing pretty quickly, and I was getting very, very angry. I was beginning to become an angry person because of that." These words strike deep, for they reveal the raw struggle of a young soul confronted with loss—loss not of something far away, but of one of the most vital senses that connects us to the world. Her anger was not mere rebellion; it was the grief of limitation, the fury of being stripped of something others take for granted. In them we hear the voice of one wrestling with destiny, torn between despair and transformation.

The origin of her words lies in her childhood, when Glennie, who would later rise to become one of the world’s greatest percussionists, began to lose her hearing. To a child, this was not a noble test but a source of rage and confusion. Music, sound, and conversation were slipping away, and in their absence came isolation. She confesses that this isolation began to twist her spirit toward anger. It is a truth many endure when faced with suffering: that the first reaction of the heart is often not acceptance, but rebellion.

History has seen countless figures face this same battle. Beethoven, in the prime of his life, felt the creeping silence that would rob him of hearing. In his despair, he raged, even contemplated ending his life, as revealed in the Heiligenstadt Testament. Yet from this suffering came some of the greatest music ever written. Glennie’s story mirrors this ancient struggle: that great souls, when deprived of one gift, often discover another hidden within themselves, waiting to be awakened by hardship.

Her words also reveal the danger of anger untransformed. To lose something dear without guidance or outlet can harden the heart, making one bitter and closed to others. Glennie names this truth: she was "becoming an angry person." But in naming it, she also teaches us that anger, though natural, must be faced, understood, and reshaped. It can become a fire that destroys—or a fire that forges. For Glennie, it became the latter, driving her to explore music in a new way, feeling vibration through her body rather than through her ears.

In this transformation lies the heroic essence of her journey. What might have silenced her instead became her path to greatness. The child who once feared becoming consumed by anger became a woman who travels the world as a percussionist, proving that sound is not only heard with the ears but experienced with the whole body. Her testimony teaches us that what first awakens as rage at loss can, if endured and reshaped, become the very fuel of triumph.

For us, the lesson is this: do not fear your anger when hardship comes, but do not let it rule you. Recognize it as the first cry of a wounded soul, but do not remain in it. Seek to transform it into energy, into action, into perseverance. Like Glennie, take what has been taken from you and turn it into the seed of something greater. Loss will come to all, but greatness comes to those who refuse to let loss define them.

Therefore, children of tomorrow, heed Evelyn Glennie’s testimony. When life strips away what you cherish, when anger rises in your chest like a storm, know that you stand at a crossroads. One path leads to bitterness and ruin; the other, to transformation and mastery. Choose the latter. Harness your rage, shape it into purpose, and let your wound become your strength. For even in silence, one may create music, and even in loss, one may discover a power greater than anything ever imagined. Anger can destroy, but in the hands of the wise, it can also create.