"How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it."

In 328 BC, Alexander the Great held a banquet in Maracanda. He was the conqueror of the known world. He began to boast about his achievements. He claimed he was superior to his father, King Philip. One of his generals, Cleitus the Black, took offense. Cleitus was not just a soldier, he was the man who had saved Alexander's life in battle at Granicus. Drunk and angry, Cleitus shouted back. He mocked Alexander. He praised Philip. The room went quiet. Alexander’s rage snapped. He grabbed a spear from a guard and drove it through the chest of his friend. Cleitus fell dead.

The silence that followed was different. It was the silence of horror. The cause of the anger was a few drunken words. The cause was wounded vanity. The consequence was the murder of a loyal friend. The consequence was a stain on Alexander's soul that no conquest could wash away. Alexander wept for days. He tried to kill himself in his grief. The insult from Cleitus would have been forgotten by morning. The spear in Cleitus’s chest remained forever.

You calculate the price of a house or a car, but you rarely calculate the price of your emotions. You feel a flash of anger because someone cut you off in traffic. That is the cause. You react by driving aggressively. You crash your car or get into a roadside fight. That is the consequence. The cause was five seconds of delay. The consequence is a lawsuit, an injury, or a criminal record. The math does not work. You are trading a diamond for a piece of glass. You are burning down your house to kill a rat.

Errors & Corrections

• Don't focus on whether your anger is "justified" by the other person's action. Focus on what your anger will cost you.
• Don't believe that expressing anger relieves the pressure. Understand that expressing anger often breaks things that cannot be fixed.
• Don't act immediately when you feel the pulse of rage. Force a delay. Wait until the red mist clears to assess the damage.

Applications to Modern Life

The modern world is full of traps for your temper. You receive a rude email from a client. The cause is a few lines of digital text. It hurts your ego. You type a furious reply and hit send. The consequence is that you lose the account. You might lose your job. You might ruin your professional reputation.

Apply this logic before you type. Look at the rude email. Ask yourself, "What is the cost of this annoyance?" It is zero. It is just pixels on a screen. Now ask, "What is the cost of my reaction?" The cost is your livelihood. When you see the equation clearly, you will not hit send. You will delete the draft. You will realize that maintaining your composure is the only way to come out ahead.

Maxims

• Anger is a temporary madness.
• Do not burn the house to kill the rat.

In-depth Concepts

The delay of Gratification

Seneca advised that the greatest cure for anger is delay. Anger is a fast emotion. It relies on speed. If you force it to wait, it loses its power. Reason is slow. It needs time to arrive. By enforcing a delay, you allow Reason to catch up with Passion.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

Stoicism is often about economics. We have a limited amount of energy and time. Spending high energy on low-value provocations is poor management. A wise person conserves their energy for things that actually matter. They do not spend their spirit on the trivial errors of others.