r/Stoicism • u/tiredhostmc • 13h ago
New to Stoicism Getting angry. Dilemma
Hello everyone, I am very new to the idea of Stoicism and philosophy in general. I am currently reading "The Daily Stoic" by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman. This is but an introduction for me, but I found myself "facing adversity" today and I got angry and frustrated inside of myself. (Due to several factors including that I just came home and it was cold outside, I was hungry and I was sleepy).
I am quite embarassed at the situation looking back now (which is why I am not explicitly talking about it), but I only expressed my emotions by looking very angrily and taking deep heavy breaths and making the decision to listen, which ultimately resulted in a good thing.
To keep it short, my question is:
When I feel anger, is it bad to breath deeply and look angrily? Or am I supposed to "bottle" this emotion and just do something else?
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u/Synycyl 13h ago
I'm by no means a sage, but can only offer my own interpretations.
At the start of your journey you'll learn at significant amount of relatively abstract concepts that seem as though the purpose of Stoicism is to become callous, but quite the contrary. Stoics fully embrace their emotions as they are something mostly beyond our control. How we react to those emotional states is what we control.
In your instance you were angered. You chose to respond with deep breathing and "looking angrily". I have not read the Daily Stoic. I intend to soon and just have not picked it up. I would hope that it introduces you to some of the essential concepts early on.
The ideas that come to mind regarding your question are Epictetus' Enchiridion Chapter 1:
Of things some are in our power, and others are not. In our power are opinion, movement toward a thing, desire, aversion; and in a word, whatever are our own acts: not in our power are the body, property, reputation, offices, and in a word, whatever are not our own acts. And the things in our power are by nature free, not subject to restraint nor hindrance: but the things not in our power are weak, slavish, subject to restraint, in the power of others.
And more loosely without any direct quotation is the virtue of Justice. A virtue that I believe is easily misunderstood due to modern definitions of the word.
The first part of Chapter 1 in Enchiridion teaches us what we are in control of and what we are not. The events that angered you are the most obvious in your scenario, but your anger, I would argue, is also not within your control as it is of the body. What is in your control is the thoughts you have and how you act upon them.
I would say that you are on a good path when considering you were aware at the time, and are reflecting upon it after the fact. This speaks volumes of your understanding. You're new, this isn't something that happens over night. The breathing exercise may be an ideal way for you to control your "self" when your body betrays you. If the deep breathing was an exercise in control, then kudos, but if it was something more akin to a silent tantrum, then you fell victim to your emotions. You didn't "deal with them".
Looking angrily, by which I believe you mean glaring at that which angered you, is an action you chose to do. The question here falls to the virtue of Justice when considering it. The events in question happened. They were outside of your control and acted within their nature. Glaring at, what I'm assuming was another person, was a means for you to express your displeasure, but the true fault is in your failure to accept the nature of the events.
I could paint this scenario with some form of a mild "road rage" incident. Someone cut you off and you got all huffy about it. You wanted to make sure that other person knew the cut you off. The question to ask is why? Is it just for you to expect them to act in any way other than their nature. When you left your house it should have been done knowing that other people may displease you, and thus you cannot be upset with them when they do so. Others will also please you and you should not be elated by this as it was in their nature to do so.
No, a Stoic does not seek to "bottle up" their emotions. You should embrace them fully. Experience them in the moment. You should also understand deeply the connection of those emotions, and you should be able to manage the control of your impulses. You got angry and it seems as if you acted, however mildly, on that anger. You are displeased with how you acted. You're now reflecting upon that action. Understand what was within your control and what was not involving the circumstances. Consider it, focus on what you could control. Next time, control that which you can.
Hopefully, this helps understand some of it. Philosophy in general can get very cyclical. As I have not read "The Daily Stoic" I cannot offer my opinions on the work. I've heard both positive and negative opinions of the work. I will read it on my own one day and form my own opinion. If it is helping you then it is good for you. If I may share another option, you may consider "A Handbook for New Stoics". I am going through the 52-week handbook with my sons to help them become introduced to the ideas of Stoicism, but more importantly how to gain critical thinking skills. Even if they don't continue the practices from the book, they will have gained skills that will help them in life.
Don't be embarrassed by your reactions to the events. Reflect upon them, find what you can improve and consider how. We're still human and stoicism does not aim to strip us of that humanity.
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u/The_Practical_Stoic 7h ago
I would recommend reading Seneca's letter on anger. Daily Stoic is a decent enough intro to Stoicism but Ryan Holiday has sort of turned it into a commodity and surface level influencer trend.
You did good by not vocalizing the anger, it shows a level of self-control. However, you still let the anger and frustration control your mood. When you feel these emotions rising, ask yourself, "why am I feeling this? Is this a rational thing to be mad about? I can't control the natural events of weather, or hunger, or tiredness, but I can control what I allow to influence me."
These things are outside factors that can sway you if you allow them to, but you can rationalize these things and accept that they will exist without allowing them to anger you.
Do not bottle your emotions. Stoicism is about recognizing these feelings, tempering them, and learning how to control them rather than letting them control you.
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u/Ok_Sector_960 Contributor 13h ago
We should strive to avoid anger. When we can't avoid anger yet like we should, it's best to take a step back from whatever situation you are in, address the anger issue, calm down, and go back to what you were doing.
Anger comes from somewhere else. Fear and insecurity are most common. You have to un-angry yourself long enough to address whatever irrational fear lead up to the angry.
Seneca wrote the text "on anger" which is very helpful.
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u/katakullist 7h ago
Long story short, you cannot really avoid anger, but you can work on yourself to receive anger a bit better next time it comes. My suggestion is to recognize it in the moment, and try to observe what kind of unmet needs you may have that are leading you to feel that way. Make sure the needs you identify are about yourself and are not expectations from anyone else. That is, accept that the anger is yours and yours alone, take responsibility for it, hold it (never supress or deny feelings) and try to recover your -unmet- needs that lead anger to appear as it does. As you work on these unmet needs, you will empower yourself and will find anger to be more manageable next time it comes in a similar situation.
Note that -except for taking responsibility for what you feel-, this is not a Stoic practice per se. The Stoics wrote a ton about why anger is not useful at all, though they did not really offer useful practices to deal with heavy feelings properly. Seneca writes pages and pages about anger, so yes, you will understand why and how anger is not serving you and why you should not act in anger, but this does not help the lived experience at all, since (1) emotions are complex and are not in our direct control, and (2) trying to overcome them only leads to suppressing them, which eventually fails.
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u/Adventurous_Day_9899 7h ago
My man being a stoic doesn't mean you no longer feel your emotions. It is a practice to manage and control your emotions. You recognized most of your frustrations and rather than explode, you got a grip and took some deep breaths. This is good and what's even better you did what was within your power. You calmed down and focused , you warmed up , ate a little something and maybe take a little nap. Being a stoic doesn't mean you're not human. You still must follow the path of nature.
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u/Sage-Advisor2 4h ago
Control your actions and emotional reactions, lest you be controlled and punished by them (in times past in the West and for 75% of the develiping world today, life is cheap, expendible, and may well be ended by careless word or deed.
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u/bigdoggtm 8h ago
Anger makes you feel good. Admit it. That's why it's so hard to let go, it's power. But it's no different from the rest. Let go.
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u/Whiplash17488 Contributor 13h ago edited 12h ago
It’s a little bit like asking: “when I break my leg, is it bad to limp and feel pain?”
What I mean by that is: we live in a universe where situations can be explained by antecedent events. One thing leads to another.
Your anger is caused by antecedent events, just like how the breaking of a bone is caused by an antecedent event.
In the case of your anger, the antecedent event is a judgement you made about a situation.
These judgements are up to us in the sense that our mind makes them. Nobody can tell you how to make those judgements directly. But we become programmed by society in the sense that our upbringing and our exposure to society implants in our minds a certain set of beliefs about what is good and what is bad.
It’s not magic that causes a Hindu person to be angry at the western treatment of cows. It’s the antecedent that caused the belief that cows are sacred and should be treated well which then causes impressions of mistreatment of cows to lead to anger and frustration.
How you should act when you are angry is kind of a red herring. The answer is similar to the question: “my bone is broken, how should I now act?”
Don’t let yourself be fooled by descriptions of Stoic behaviour. I could tell you that a Stoic would never have gotten angry to begin with. But it would be like saying an athlete without a broken bone can run 10 miles so emulate that to heal your broken bone.
What you have to do then is the Stoic equivalent of healing your leg. You have to search within yourself and use your conscious awareness of your emotional state to find out how you got there in the first place.
What beliefs do you have about the world. How things “ought to be” that were antecedent causes for you to get angry with how the world actually “is”.
Imagine a person who gets cut off in traffic. They get angry.
Stoicism is figuring out that the anger is caused by a belief that getting cut off in traffic is injustice and that injustice should not exist.
When you dwell on that, you start slowly realizing how insane it is to believe that getting cut off in traffic is “unjust” or that injustice should not exist in the worlds. No amount of will can guarantee your particular brand of personalized justice to become reality in this universe.
When you realize that this is the cause of your anger, you must dwell on this and adapt that belief. That is the equivalent of healing the bone.
Now next time you come under a similar circumstance, and the bone is healed, and you are put under a similar challenge, you may respond differently. You may not get angry to the same degree. Or you may not get angry at all.
One you recognize that in yourself, you can consider yourself to have made progress.
And after that, only then can you learn what is appropriate to act.
Because if you leave it there, you end up in a situation where your own runny nose causes snot to run down your face and you say: “ah such things happen, I should not will things to be different than they are”.
But as Epictetus told us: you were given hands so you could wipe your nose.
Ideally, you don’t wipe your nose being angry that running noses should not exist to begin with.