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February    10th

ANGER   IS  BAD FUEL

“There  is  no  more    stupefying  thing   than    anger,  nothing more    bent    on  its own strength.   If  successful,

none    more    arrogant,   if  foiled, none    more    insane—since    it’s    not driven  back    by  weariness   even

in  defeat, when    fortune removes its adversary   it  turns   its teeth   on  itself.”

—SENECA,    ON  ANGER,  3.1.5

s the Stoics have said many times, getting angry almost never solves anything. Usually, it makes
things worse. We get upset, then the other person gets upset—now everyone is upset, and the
problem is no closer to getting solved.
Many successful people will try to tell you that anger is a powerful fuel in their lives. The desire to
“prove them all wrong” or “shove it in their faces” has made many a millionaire. The anger at being
called fat or stupid has created fine physical specimens and brilliant minds. The anger at being rejected
has motivated many to carve their own path.
But that’s shortsighted. Such stories ignore the pollution produced as a side effect and the wear and
tear it put on the engine. It ignores what happens when that initial anger runs out—and how now more and
more must be generated to keep the machine going (until, eventually, the only source left is anger at
oneself). “Hate is too great a burden to bear,” Martin Luther King Jr. warned his fellow civil rights
leaders in 1967, even though they had every reason to respond to hate with hate.
The same is true for anger—in fact, it’s true for most extreme emotions. They are toxic fuel. There’s
plenty of it out in the world, no question, but never worth the costs that come along with it.