119 - Who is Your Master?

“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master;

he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.”

― Epictetus

Show Notes:

•Stoics believed strongly that we are all in control of our own emotions
•One of the strongest emotions we have to deal with is anger
•From an evolutionary standpoint it seems to makes sense. We feel threatened and we respond in a way that we think will deal with the threat.
•But the thing is, fear is usually the response to a physical threat. Anger is usually response from a threat to our ego. Anger is usually what we use to try and control something that we can’t.
•When someone speaks poorly of us, or does or says something we don’t like, we’re trying to control them through anger.
•If someone is easily offended and flies off the handle at even the smallest thing, they are are trying to control others. 
•But when we get angry we’re failing to control the one thing we truly can control - ourselves. We’re giving control of our emotions to someone else.
•Have you ever seen a kid do things just to get a rise out of someone? Maybe their siblings or their parents? It’s their way of trying to see if they can control the other person. 
•This is why politicians like to get people angry about something. Why they choose a polarizing side on an issue. It’s about control. 
•Get people angry about something and you have a lot more control over them.
•People don’t go to war because they’re happy and want to be kind to others.
•They go to war because they’re angry about something. And it may have started of being afraid of something, but was channeled into anger.
•Remember, the only thing that you can control is yourself, so it’s up to you to decide - are you the master of yourself, or are you going to give that power to anyone else that upsets you?


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