Marcus Alden Meredith
August 25, 2025
Pause, 1,2,3… Reflect, 1,2,3
Dealing with Anger
Anger… the emotion that is SO powerful and yet so destructive. It has been a constant adversary and companion for me since I was very young. It is an emotion that the Stoics write very intimately about, especially how to deal with it. Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations seems to be constantly addressing the issue of anger, reminding himself over and over again that this is an over-reaction and that we are meant to deal with people and how they are, that they are not changeable by this emotion, and reminding us and himself of the physical and emotional toll it takes from us. Dealing with it is a very intimate and demanding process… for I am a child who was the object of the bully’s torment when younger… a set of memories that are seared into my subconscious mind and only able to be dealt with through the graces of the martial arts and it’s course of discipline as well as the straight forward advice and guidance of the Stoics. To say I have it completely under control would be a lie, but it is firmly in it’s corner under lock and key… the temptation, far too often, is to let it out.
It is often quoted that, “Comparison is the thief of joy” and if that is true then its accomplice in destruction is anger. How each individual person learns to deal with anger is their own doing and their own emotional alchemy to practice. I can only tell the story of my anger’s origins, not someone else’s. It seems to me that anger can either be harnessed as a bull put to the yoke, or it is turned inwards and becomes an emotional cancer. In the former, you take the emotion and use it to drive you toward a more noble goal such as aiding people in need from conflict either from war, or political/criminal strife, or perhaps something more intimate like abuse or neglect. Take for example the people who work at WEAVE (Women Escaping A Violent Environment) who give aide, shelter, and comfort to women facing domestic abuse. Surely some of them have had to deal with the anger that such a situation could, would inspire in them. But they have chosen to use it for the benefit of others or possibly even as a means of self healing coming from a similar situation. They could have wallowed in self-pity and destructive patterns of living, turning their anger inwards at, “that pitiful wretch of a being who is abused because it is ‘their fault’ due to their physical/emotional unattractiveness that makes my [insert relationship] hit me… you see it’s my fault he does it.” But by helping others, these people grasp onto a means of self-healing using the anger they possess as a positive force to do good.
Then there is the latter path… a path to inevitable self-destruction. The anger that drives you to beliefs like, “If I can make a million dollars this year, I’ll be worthy and can prove to everyone that I’m not a loser!” But this emotional self-immolation just keeps expanding and metastasizing until the anger inside destroys you and everyone around you. It can manifest itself in many ways, but the end result is always the same… self-destruction. It is the lucky ones of us who learn to do what the Stoics used to say: Pause and Reflect. The training is to come to the realization that what ‘that other person did’ is just not worth it, you will not let it change who you are… you will go on and be fine. This doesn’t mean that you are a passive participant in life, no. The example of the WEAVE workers is again my example. But going back to First Principles and Marcus Aurelius would have stated, you see that what other people do is beyond your control, so it is not something that you should spend any time on for you need to work on you and being a virtuous person so that, “they cannot implicate you in ugliness.” Stop doomscrolling, stop watching the news streams for hours at a time. Read, take a walk, play music but do not let the monster of anger eat at you. Be a witness to history, as the Buddhists would say, but do not let that implicate you in its tortuous ugliness. Train yourself to always pause first, reflect on what is happening, take the time to “recite the alphabet first” and see how that helps. Reflect, don’t react. Breath… just breath and let it pass. In the STAR WARS movies, Master Yoda says pretty emphatically, “Fear leads to anger, which leads to hate, which leads to suffering.” Someone says something upsetting…. turn away, count to 30, let the initial impulse fade. You’ll probably find that taking the time to reflect let’s you see that a response is not even necessary. To remind myself of this, I carry a challenge coin in my pocket that I can feel right now… it says “Pause et Reflecte”, to pause and reflect. However you can do it, I think you’ll find it a much better way of life and living.
Pause… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5….. Reflect…. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5….. Peace friends.
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