💀 Dying Every Day
The Dying Every Day series delivers guided meditations on the art of living. Each meditation provides a quote, a selected passage (from an original Stoic text), and a reflection prompt to consider. These meditations are designed to help you (and me) reflect on what it means to live a good life.
The Perils of Anger
“It’s not what they do that bothers us: that’s a problem for their minds, not ours. It’s our own misperceptions. Discard them. Be willing to give up thinking of this as a catastrophe … and your anger is gone.”
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.18
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Selected Passage
In this week’s meditation, we explore the emotion of anger through a selected reading from Seneca.
Anger is that which overleaps reason and carries it away. … Reason considers nothing but the question at issue; anger is moved by trifling things that lie outside the case. An overconfident demeanor, a voice too loud, unrestrained speech, overrefined attire, over-solicitous advocacy, and popularity with the public – anger is inflamed by all of them. It will often condemn the accused because it hates his lawyer; even if the truth is piled up before its eyes, it loves error and upholds it; it refuses to be convinced and counts persistence in what is wrongly begun to be more honorable than penitence. …
What is more unworthy of the wise man than that his emotions should depend on the wickedness of others? Shall great Socrates lose the power to carry back home the same look he had when he left? If the wise man is to be angered by low deeds, if he is to be upset and unsettled by crimes, surely nothing is more woeful than the wise man’s lot; his whole life will be passed in anger and in grief. For what moment will there be when he will not see something to disapprove of?
+Adapted from On Anger
Reflection Exercise
Can you think of a time when you lost your temper? Why? What did you learn from the experience? In Stoicism (and Buddhism), they spend significant time writing about the problem of anger. The Stoics believed that anger did not lead to good outcomes. Seneca’s writing makes the point clear when he says, “Great anger ends in madness, and therefore anger is to be avoided – for the sake not of moderation but of sanity.”
Journaling Prompt
Consider journaling about the topic of anger. You might ask yourself questions like, “How do I define (or think about) anger?” and “How can I avoid being “carried away” by anger in daily life?”
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W.
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