this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023
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Age. After 40 years I realised it's not worth getting wound up about things. Every year I drop more and more 'baggage'. Life is a lot easier when you let things go.
Similarly, experience. I've survived suicide attempts, close calls, addictions, fights, sickness and death. My meds being lost by the pharmacy is pretty minor compared to the epic time travel battle I had against God last year during a meth psychosis that resulted in my arrest and court. Experience adds perspective.
Meditation and noticing emotions don't have to be acted upon. It's on top feel something. It's pointless trying to stop that feeling. What you can do is not act on that feeling. Raging at the idiot who pulled in front of you solves nothing.
Hanlon's Razor: "don't attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance". The majority of times people 'wrong' you is due to ignorance. Not malice. One of the reasons why I find the obsession with labelling people "narcissist" a bit silly. They aren't, they're just wrapped up in their own bubble of problems. We all are.
Stoicism has many great lessons and quotes that are worth reflecting on over your lifetime. Let them percolate your soul and after many years you just become more stoic.
As someone of a similar age, I can definitely say this is not true for everybody.
It's not like we don't know that. Otherwise OP wouldn't have the self awareness to ask the question. It's just an emotional reaction to people, situations, and actions that defy logic. I get angry at drivers when they do things that are not only blatantly selfish and inconsiderate, but dangerous and usually illegal (in SoCal that's every few minutes). I don't know about OP, but I'm not doing any "raging." No one looking over at me would know I'm angry af, but I'm sitting there wondering how the US is filled with so many sociopathic freaks and why we're all ok with the way we treat each other. And picturing what would happen had I done the same thing in traffic. A cop would materialize out of nowhere, or the other person would jump out of their car with a bat. But the people who cut me off? They never see any consequences, and if any one of them learns their lesson, there's ten more willfully ignorant, dangerously stupid people to put everyone else at risk. I'm not attributing anything to malice. Cluelessness is so much worse, and people should be held accountable for not learning from their mistakes. Besides, being considerate, responsible, generally respectful, and empathetic does not require any extra education or intelligence (though it would certainly help). Somehow, the universe is totally fine with all of this, and so is everyone else. I was in a bad accident years ago because someone pulled right out in front of me, so I've lived through the consequences of some selfish prick valuing their two seconds of time over other people's actual lives. If a teenager acted the way we act collectively, as a population, their parents would be told they have behavioral problems. You can not react all you want, but that doesn't help anything going on under the surface. Mindfulness and stoicism is just living with the anger and stress instead of solving it. That's why cognitive behavioral therapy is the only thing that will actually help it.
Reacting also means any thoughts you may have. You reacted by thinking all of this:
That's reacting. VERY reacting. Did it solve anything by reacting like that? Telling me all that? Does it fix your problem - the idiots on the road? No. What would fix the idiots on the road? Speaking to your political reps, volunteering or funding road safety charities.
No it isn't. I strongly urge you to study it more. Mindfulness is the first and very important step to realising emotions don't rule you. You rule your emotions but most people manage their emotions badly. They fight or ignore them. That's a bad idea because they don't like being ignored, they come back x10. I've done DBT which is like CBT for emotional regulation and mindfulness is a key component. Mindfulness teaches you to detach from your emotional impulses and react more rationally. It's a lot like CBT but it uses mindfullness to help you learn that fundamentally important fact: You are not your emotions.
You don't ignore your anger, sadness, pain, etc with mindfulness, you embrace it.
Take meditation - pure mindfulness - you sit in silence with your eyes closed. Your arse hurts (pain), your back (pain), am I breathing right (anxiety)? I should focus on that (intention), fuck I'm bored (iritation), I'm tired (tired), maybe I should eat (bored/hunger), etc. The simplest, most basic activity you can do is immensely difficult for people to manage more than 5mins of. Why? Because you're governed by your emotions, those drives and annoyances flooding you every few seconds. You realise your mind is noisy as hell but meditating/sitting silently teaches you that you aren't those emotions.
From there it becomes easier to 'pause'* your feelings and make a more rational and useful response. A response that gives catharsis.
*pause is the wrong word. You kindof 'pause' your inner state, step back, assess and act. It sounds overly complicated but like any skill it becomes second nature and instantaneous with practice. Meditation is a form of practice and living your daily life as mindfully as you can is practice.
Is basically CBT/DBT and mindfulness spat out in quote format. Having read the above maybe you'll see that in these Marcus Aurelius quotes:
Recommended Reading:
I'm glad those quotes helped you, but to me they just look like vague platitudes. And I say this as someone who does not have trouble controlling their emotions.
I would add to Hanlon’s Razor that not everything needs an intent behind it. Sometimes things just happen, good or bad, and you should take them as they come without worrying too much about whether someone has wronged you. A lot of people get wrapped up in conspiracy theory thinking because they have to have an explanation for everything, even if they have to invent shadowy organizations.