Seneca Moral essays
Seneca: There is no passion that is more frantic, more…
There is no passion that is more frantic, more destructive to its own self; it is arrogant if successful, and frantic if it fails. Even when defeated it does not grow weary, but if chance places its foe beyond its reach, it turns its teeth against itself.
The passage follows a public-domain translation of Seneca’s moral essays. The reading beside it is ours.
Anger is a terrible employee because it cannot accept a setback. If it gets what it wants, it demands more. If it cannot reach the person it blames, it looks for another target: a spouse, a stranger in traffic, or ourselves. You see this after an argument at work spills into a miserable evening at home. The original problem may have been small, but anger keeps chewing on it until everything is damaged. That is its special madness: it punishes the person carrying it as much as anyone else. When you cannot change the outcome, do not let frustration turn inward or sideways. Name the disappointment plainly. Take a walk. Put the phone down. Anger wants a victim; discipline refuses to provide one. Your job is not to feed the fire simply because it is already burning.
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