Anger is a sign of powerlessness.

My friend, one of the obstacles to happiness is anger. Can you believe it? People who are never angry become saints.

Anger is an uncontrollable desire to punish. Psychologist Ronald Porter Efron once told a story: "Once upon a time, a couple went hiking, where they met an old wise man. The wise man sat them down and told them that they could ask him any questions. They asked him the meaning of life and answered happily. They asked him the secret of happiness and wrote it down. They asked him the secret of the universe and told him everything. Then, they asked him the last question:' Master, we are often angry and often hurt each other when we are angry. "What shall we do?" The wise man glared at them, broke the pen in half, cursed loudly and stomped back to the cave. "Well," he muttered, "if I knew the answer to this question, I wouldn't sit alone on this mountain!" "

Anger is a strong emotion, which brings unparalleled hurricanes in calm and peaceful days and makes the ocean set off huge waves. Let most people feel the sinister fate, the happiness of life is out of reach, but the pain has not passed the neck.

Ju Lushi vented his anger on a river. At that time, he led an army bent on destroying Babylon and planned to wade the Kindes River, which was already full of water. A white horse of the king's chariot was swept away by the river under the action of the swift current. The king was so angry that he vowed to kill the river that took away the king's royal horse so that women could step on it. He put down all preparations and devoted all his energy to this matter. He ordered the soldiers to make180 cuts on both sides of the river bed, so as to divide the river into a small river flowing in all directions, and finally let the river bed here dry up completely. He won the river, but sacrificed the opportunity to fight and the morale of the troops and lost the opportunity to conquer Babylon.

According to ancient Greek philosophy, anger is a strong desire for revenge. Epicurus defined anger as a state of mental excitement that makes people hurt those who hurt them or intentionally hurt them. What does stouch think of anger? Bostoni believes that anger is a strong desire to punish those who are unfair to you. Seneca thinks that anger is a "desire to punish". Think that passion is an excessive and irrational impulse. Anger is the craziest and most terrible of all passions, which will cause many serious consequences, make people do many things that they would not have done, and even commit crimes under passion. However, on the surface, it is difficult for us to predict the generation of anger, because there are many forms of anger: intense or mild, rapid or lasting; Some resort to violence, some resort to words, and some are unhappy and plain.

The most typical example is the story of Medea. Jason, the hero who captured golden fleece in Greek mythology, got golden fleece with the help of Medea, Princess of Kocsis, married Medea, and later abandoned his wife. Medea jealously called on the gods for revenge, gave Jason's bride a fine robe and a golden crown, poisoned the princess, and then killed herself and Jason's children. This is a very sad story. The beautiful Medea also reflected on why she wanted to kill her children, but decided that this passion was beyond her control. By punishing Jason, she completely hurt herself. In later operas, her sad image and repeated singing of events made countless people cry.

Fluctuation and passion need to be corrected in real life. Aristotle, on the other hand, supports anger and thinks that anger can spur virtue. If we deprive anger, human reason will become unable to defend itself, so it will become lazy, negligent and indifferent to all kinds of great efforts. Others misunderstand anger and associate it with courage and frankness, thinking that anger helps to improve the power of reason and deter the wicked.

Stoic scholars are completely different. They believe that passion is an emotion beyond rational control and a paranoid psychological and emotional state that needs to be corrected. In fact, anger only makes people rely on the evil of others, because anger thinks that they are provoked by others, which leads to uncontrollable psychological state, that is to say, anger has made them lose themselves. For a person, nothing hurts himself more than losing himself. Out-of-control passion will be stimulated again and again, and indulged again and again.

They believe that the generation of passion includes three stages: "and let you know how the emotion begins, how it grows or has an impact: the initial fluctuation is unintentional, it is like emotional preparation or some kind of omen." It is accompanied by will, but it is not firm. The third wave is completely out of control, completely overwhelming rationality, and it seeks desperate revenge, not just in an appropriate way. "What was the initial fluctuation? Stoic scholars believe that the mind accepts "impression" and gives "recognition", thus triggering "impulse" or passionate reaction. The initial fluctuation recorded this impression, which is an unconscious mental activity that cannot be overcome and avoided before rational judgment. If your heart beats faster in the face of danger, watch the tragedy and cry. Passion is an emotion that includes rational cognition. It goes through the second wave and finally evolves into the third wave. So there is no passion without reason, and reason is one of the foundations of passion.

However, this rationality lacks control. In the fluctuation, people express their abilities through anger, and more often lose everything in anger. King Cambyses of Persia was a heavy drinker, and his closest friend Prex Pace advised him to control himself, because the king was so popular that it was disgraceful to get drunk. Cambyses said quietly, "To let you know that I have never been unable to control myself, let you see that my eyes and hands can still function after drinking." . He called the ministers to hold a banquet and drink, and raised a huge glass to drink. When he was dizzy and drunk as a fiddler, he ordered Preske's son to go to the threshold and stand in front of him with his left hand over his head. The king asked someone to pick up his bow and arrow, pull it open, shoot an arrow, and hit the child's heart impartially. Then go forward and cut open the child's chest with a sword, showing off the arrow inserted in the heart. He turned to the child's father and asked, "Is my hand accurate?" Father's answer is: "Apollo can't shoot more accurately than this."

Asti argus, king of Persia, was a cruel king. When Ju Lushi was a baby, he ordered Khabaros to kill him, but Khabaros didn't do it. The king ordered that his son's meat be served to him as a dish at the banquet. In addition to persuading him to eat more, he kept asking whether the dish was to his taste. After seeing him feasting on his own flesh and blood, the king had their headbands brought in and asked him what he thought of his hospitality. He said quietly, "At the royal table, everything smells good." Both fathers are extremely rational, but they cannot comment.

The human heart is desolate, and it is rare to find people who uphold the same principles, so we can't blame those who are confused by various concepts. You have been angry with others, and you have met with anger. More often, all you need is rational peace. Gustave Le Bon said in Mob: "It is the passion and stupidity caused by illusion that inspires mankind to embark on the road of civilization. In this respect, human reason is of little use. It can neither bring music nor art, so these illusions are undoubtedly necessary as a force to promote human civilization. "

In his view, those who are easily excited, semi-crazy, mentally ill and all those on the verge of madness are particularly prone to produce leaders. Because all beings are always willing to listen to strong-willed people, he also knows how to force them to accept their own views. People who get together will completely lose their will and instinctively turn to someone who has qualities they don't have. However, for Stoic philosophers, passion can only play a huge destructive role, so that in virtue, it eventually loses its essential determination and achieves nothing. After all, the strength gained when you have a high fever is short-lived and harmful, and can only do harm to yourself.

Reason and emotion are unified in spiritual strength. Stoic scholars disagree with the dualistic discussion of rationality and irrationality in classical Greek philosophy. They think that rationality and irrationality are not two completely different functions of the brain. On the contrary, irrationality is a state in which rationality may also fall into it. Reason does not function independently of emotion, that is, it either exercises good control or does not intervene, and it does not always make correct judgments.

Seneca believes that reason and emotion are not two completely separated parts, but unified in the mind. Reason without emotion is useless, and emotion without reason is stupid. It's hard to say whether a person has always been rational or has always lacked rationality in his life. He has always maintained a balanced state between sensibility and rationality. So when we face life, we always need to remind ourselves that reason is indispensable. Rigid rational life is beyond the reach of ordinary people, while pure emotional life will inevitably bring a person into the abyss.

Seneca thinks that "sullen silence" is also an expression of anger. He believes that we can correct our anger through rationality and improve our rational ability through continuous training, so that we can always make correct judgments. He integrated the political and ethical thoughts of his predecessors and applied "natural law and fatalism" to the field of drama creation, which inspired the popular drama of Elizabethan era. For example, Othello's twisted desire for destruction directly led to the tragedy that the kind Desdemona was strangled innocently.

Othello described it this way: "She loves all the hardships I have experienced, and I love her because she sympathizes with me". Desdemona was relieved of Othello's crime before she died, but Othello was destroyed alone in foolish suspicion and credulity and hopeless anger. It proves how fragile individuals are in the face of human weakness. Therefore, we should treat this passion as a disease and give effective treatment.

You should manage the toolbox to eradicate anger. In the stoic view, passion should be completely eradicated, which is not a good thing in essence. People should completely eradicate anger, not moderation, and allowing moderate anger means allowing moderate evil. A good emotional state is "calm and rational desire, rational prudence in the face of threats, and rational determination to punish evil."

Emotions beyond rational control cannot be eliminated through rational cognition, which raises a question: how does something based on rationality finally surpass rational control? We should consider this problem in this way. Anyone's rationality is actually imperfect, and there will be such shortcomings. Because of the limitation of wisdom and knowledge, only in real life can immunity be continuously improved. We can all feel that thinking produces words, words produce actions, and actions produce results. A rational carriage may get lost in a strange environment.

With the development of modern science, there are more distinctions and targeted analysis of anger in emotions. According to Ronald Porter-Efron's anger control psychology, anger can be divided into disguised anger, explosive anger and long-term anger. If further subdivided, it can be roughly divided into eleven categories. Avoidant anger, cowardly anger, introverted anger, sudden anger, shameful anger, intentional anger, excited anger, habitual anger, fearful anger, moral anger and hateful anger. In psychology, these anger are important emotions, and they are messengers of emotions such as fear, sadness, disgust and happiness. Its message is: "There is a problem here and you need to solve it."

For modern people, our anger is no less than that of ancient people. Social competition is fierce, and personnel contradictions are more obvious. How not to fall into the trap of anger?

Stay out of it and use elimination to resolve anger. Epiktetos describes tyrants and wise men like this. "But I'll cut off your head." "That's very kind of you. I forgot that I should care about you as much as I care about fever and cholera. I should also set up an altar for you, just as the Romans set up an altar for a fever. " So, what makes so many people confused and confused? Is it the tyrant and his guards? No, of course not. What is essentially free will not be disturbed or hindered by anything but itself. What interferes with him can only be his understanding and opinion.

Because, if the tyrant threatens him and says, "I will tie your legs with chains." People who cherish their legs will say, "No, give me a break", while people who cherish their wishes will say, "If you think it's better for you, lock it up." "Don't you care?" I don't care. "I let you see, I am the master, I have the final say. How could you possibly? Zeus released me. Do you think he will make his son a slave? You are only the master of my body, take it away. "

"You came to me to say that you don't care about me?" Yeah, I don't care. I only care about myself. If you want me to say that I care about you, I can say so, but I care about you as much as I care about my kettle. "

The cleverest thing for Epiktetos is to ignore his own vision, treat himself like the universe, and take an objective attitude.

According to our three Stoic principles, the best way to deal with anger can be divided into seven steps: the first step is to understand that anger is the normal state of life. Anger is a normal part of life. The second is to be willing to find problems. Anger is an accurate signal of the real problems in one's life. The third objective evaluation behavior. The angry behavior should be carefully screened. You don't have to be angry, because you can. The fourth restriction has a moderate impact. No matter how much, that's it. Fifth, clarify the purpose of solving the problem. The purpose is to solve problems, not just to express them. The sixth is clear communication and expression. Anger should be expressed clearly in a way that others can understand. The seventh is to completely let go of anger. Anger is temporary. If the problem is solved or not, try to put it down. Only in this way can you handle your anger slowly and properly.

As Seneca said: "Let's get rid of this bad habit, let's understand it from the heart and uproot it, because as long as there is a little residue, it will revive." Let's not try to control anger, but try to eradicate it completely, because what can we do to control evil things? Moreover, as long as we try our best, we can still do this. In this matter, what can help us the most is to think about our own mortality rate. "

A friend thought of a joke: "The elephant stepped on the ant nest, and all the angry ants climbed on the elephant's back. When the elephant shook its body gently, the ants were shaken to the ground, leaving only one ant clinging to the elephant's neck. The ants on the ground shouted in unison:' strangle it, strangle it'. "

Anger is a sign that people can't do anything. To eliminate anger, we can only eliminate it by transcending ourselves.