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(2889)

The Only Kind Of Comparison Worth Doing

The Only Kind Of Comparison Worth Doing

It is said that comparison is the thief of joy and is, therefore, mostly to be avoided. This is true. You’re on your own journey with your own unique circumstances. Using what other people have or wha...

6 Sep 20182min

How Are You Still Not Doing This?

How Are You Still Not Doing This?

Saint Athanasius of Alexandria wrote in Vita Antonii that the reason he did his journaling--his confessing, as the genre was called by the Christians--was that it was a safeguard against sinning. By o...

5 Sep 20183min

This Message Is Waiting For You

This Message Is Waiting For You

On April 24th 1924, the pioneer writer Laura Ingalls Wilder got a note that he mother, aged 84, had died. It was a sad day, particularly since it had been so many years since she had been able to see ...

4 Sep 20182min

In This Way You Are Unstoppable

In This Way You Are Unstoppable

Acceptance? Resignation? That’s not me, we say, when we hear the Stoics preach those concepts. I never give up. I’m a fighter. Ok. If you say so. But there’s a difference between being a fighter and a...

3 Sep 20182min

Your Heart Shouldn’t Be Getting Harder As You Go

Your Heart Shouldn’t Be Getting Harder As You Go

The old joke--which dates back to the 1870s--is that if you’re not a liberal when you’re young you have no heart, but if you’re still a liberal when you’re older, you have no brain. Now we can put any...

31 Aug 20183min

This Is The Only Thing That Matters in Life

This Is The Only Thing That Matters in Life

In 1940, while he was struggling as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Walker Percy wrote to his uncle and adopted father, William Alexander Percy, to give him the ba...

30 Aug 20182min

Why You Do This Work

Why You Do This Work

There is an element of this philosophy that is a lot of work. You do all this reading. You do your morning and evening journaling. Maybe you attend meetup groups or even have pursued an advanced degre...

29 Aug 20182min

There Is Always Something To Be Grateful For

There Is Always Something To Be Grateful For

One of the most stunning things about Anne Frank’s diary is how indefatigably happy it is. One might expect that her journal, which she kept from 1942 to 1944, as her family hid from the Nazis in an A...

28 Aug 20183min

Populært innen Business og økonomi

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