This is How Dumb Anger Is
The Daily Stoic15 Okt 2019

This is How Dumb Anger Is

Seneca wrote eloquently about how absurd the need to “get even” is. No one would think to return a bite to a dog or a kick to a mule, he writes, but when someone hurts us or pisses us off, that’s exactly what we do. We smile and laugh at this clever analogy. He’s right, we think, no one would bite a dog.

Except anger actually does do stuff that dumb to us all the time—or worse! Who hasn’t thrown a television remote that wasn’t working or smacked a vending machine that took your money? Who hasn’t banged on their keyboard when it froze or kicked a child’s toy across the room after painfully stepping on it in the middle of the night? Who hasn’t shouted obscenities at their headphones when your hand gets caught in the cord and you accidentally rip them off your head while walking through an airport or getting into a car? Who hasn’t had to resist the urge to throw their smartphone in the ocean or their golf club into a lake when these objects refuse to do what you have directed them to?

If there weren’t plenty of reasons to be suspicious of anger already, the fact that it compels you to try to physically punish inanimate objects is a pretty good one. The fact that, in anger, we often break or damage our own property—essentially punishing ourselves to send a message to something that by definition cannot receive it—tells us everything we need to know about anger.

Mainly, that it’s blinding, that it’s hard to control, and that it’s shamefully stupid.

So avoid it as much as you can.


See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Episoder(2954)

Don’t Be Distracted By Darkness

Don’t Be Distracted By Darkness

There’s no question that depressing things happen in this world. They always have and always will. People lie, cheat, steal. Envy, avarice, selfishness—it’s all out there. And it’s hard to miss. It’s ...

15 Jan 20192min

The Civil War Inside Each One Of Us

The Civil War Inside Each One Of Us

Martin Luther King Jr. was fond of using the American Civil War as a metaphor, not just to explain the divisive political landscape, but the divide within each person. Just as there was a North and So...

14 Jan 20193min

This Is What Karma Looks Like

This Is What Karma Looks Like

There is a simple proposition at the heart of classical Christianity: if you are a good person and do good works on Earth, when you die you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven and know the full bounty of...

11 Jan 20193min

The Great Equalizer

The Great Equalizer

The author Michael Malice has a running gag: whenever a celebrity dies he posts a meme that says RIP but is a photo of a similar looking but a very different (and very alive) celebrity. It’s partly a ...

10 Jan 20192min

If It’s Not Simple, It’s Bullshit

If It’s Not Simple, It’s Bullshit

There’s not much in Stoicism that’s particularly groundbreaking: Focus on what you can control. Be a good person. Manage your emotions. A lot of the famous Stoic quotes are pretty basic too: Epictetus...

9 Jan 20192min

Find A Point!

Find A Point!

Peter Barton’s beautiful memoir, Not Fade Away: A Short Life Well Lived, takes readers along a man’s search for meaning when he’s forced to confront mortality. Struggling for a reason to persist amid ...

8 Jan 20193min

The Habit You Must Start This Year

The Habit You Must Start This Year

Why does Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations speak to us so? The answer, ironically, is that because the author had zero intention of doing so—in fact, he probably would have been mortified to know how well...

7 Jan 20193min

The One Thing You Must Avoid

The One Thing You Must Avoid

Imagine this. You’ve worked for years on this novel—one that is indisputably the best thing you’ve ever done. You manage to get a publisher to buy it. You start to get rave reviews. You sell out your ...

4 Jan 20193min

Populært innen Business og økonomi

stopp-verden
dine-penger-pengeradet
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
e24-podden
rss-borsmorgen-okonominyhetene
pengepodden-2
pengesnakk
finansredaksjonen
rss-politisk-preik
utbytte
livet-pa-veien-med-jan-erik-larssen
morgenkaffen-med-finansavisen
tid-er-penger-en-podcast-med-peter-warren
stormkast-med-valebrokk-stordalen
rss-markedspuls-2
rss-sunn-okonomi
lederpodden
rss-pa-konto
okonomiamatorene