The philosopher Seneca was the tutor of the emperor Nero. One day, he sent his guards with the order for Seneca to commit suicide. They kept him in a room where he had to kill himself with a knife. His wife and daughters seized him, crying desperately, by the sleeves of his clothes. He looked at them with a tired smile and said: "What need is there to cry for a part of life, when you should cry for a whole life?"
One of the most beautiful legacies of the Stoics - and Seneca, along with Marco Aurelio, is undoubtedly one of their most passionate exponents - is how they advise us to face anger. Stoics considered anger perfectly avoidable. No one, they said, is naturally condemned to be angry. Only the ignorant and the foolish, they claimed, fall into anger. Just apply a little philosophy to manage it!
How?
Stoics explain to us that we feel anger when reality opposes our desires. For example, nobody gets angry because it rains, if you are prepared for the rain, if you are not caught off guard. But what if it rains the day you want to go for a walk in the countryside or have a barbecue? Then you get mad. Think about it: we do not get angry every time something bad happens to us, but when it is something bad and at the same time unexpected.
What can you do about it?