Seneca on Anger Management

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, born in Spain in 4 B.C., became famous in Rome as a playwright, orator and philosopher.

Seneca believed that everyday anger with circumstances or objects was foolish because "objects don't deserve our wrath let alone acknowledge it."

He wrote, "The man who offended you is either stronger or weaker than you: if he is weaker, spare him; if he is stronger, spare yourself."

He believed it possible to train yourself not to get angry by asking yourself three questions when you go to bed each night:

1) What bad habit have you cured today?

2) What fault have you resisted?

3) In what sense are you better?

Wrote Seneca, "When the light has been removed from my sight, and my wife, long aware of my habit, has become silent, I scan the whole of my day and retrace all my deeds and words. I conceal nothing from myself, I omit nothing."

I would suggest that one could profit far more from a book of his thoughts and observations than any of the myriad psychobabble texts on the subject that fill bookstore shelves.

But then, I could be wrong.

[via Claudia Hammond and "Emotional Rollercoaster"]