Do you have a blind spot?
Your road to self-improvement might be a path you’re not seeing.
In a recent conversation with Donald J. Robertson (author of How to Think Like Roman Emperor), I asked him to unpack his statement, “Anger is the royal road to self-improvement.” Here’s a short clip with his response:
How much do you think about anger?
“There’s no emotion we ought to think harder and more clearly about than anger,” according to the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, author of Anger and Forgiveness. The Buddhists and Stoics agree that anger is a vice that must be avoided. Seneca observed, “My anger is more likely to do me more harm than your wrong.”
The Perils of Anger
In my conversation with Owen Flanagan (author of How to Do Things with Emotions), we discussed the topic of anger. According to Flanagan, “we are angrier than ever—at least angrier than I have ever seen.” We model for one another and our children a “passionate intensity” that is overly confident, narcissistically demanding, and demeaning of those with whom we disagree. In short, “how we collectively do anger needs work.”
In his book How to Be Compassionate, the Dalai Lama writes,
If a person shows anger to you, and you show anger in return, the result is disaster. If you nurse hatred, you will never be happy, even in the lap of luxury. By contrast, if you control your anger and show its opposite — love, compassion, tolerance, and patience — then not only do you remain in peace, but gradually the anger of others also will diminish.
