Quit Your Whining
When you start to lose your temper, remember: There’s nothing manly about rage. It’s courtesy and kindness that define a human being — and a man. That’s who possesses strength and nerves and guts, not the angry whiners.
~Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
How do you feel when you lose your temper?
I do it from time to time; it doesn’t feel good. Sometimes, frustration takes over, I get so mad, and I end up doing or saying something I regret. I don’t know of anybody that honestly feels good about how they popped off in anger.
Every once in a while, you’ll hear somebody say something like, “Well, even Jesus got mad and flipped the tables.” And that’s absolutely right. He also drove out the animals that were in the Temple courtyard. (No, he didn’t drive out the moneychangers with a whip, it was the animals.) And, if you tend to be one of those people, let me remind you, if you’re going to be like Jesus, then be like Jesus in every aspect of your life, not just as a way to justify your anger.
Jesus absolutely gets frustrated from time to time. More often than not, flipping over tables and driving animals away wasn’t how he dealt with that frustration. More than once, we see Jesus having compassion on people. Even with his own disciples, I imagine Jesus releasing a lot of deep sighs and face palms, but he is patient with them.
But the people who throw temper tantrums, who lose their cool at meetings, who try to physically intimidate people they disagree with, those are the kind of people that Marcus Aurelius is really talking about here. The people so filled with rage that it boils over, spilling all over the place.
When I make spaghetti, or really any kind of pasta dish, and I have to boil the pasta, I’m notorious for putting too much water in the pot. It boils over like crazy. Sometimes, I catch it before it does, and I’ll turn down the heat, but more often than I’d like to admit, I’m too busy paying attention to other elements of the meal, and the water ends up going over the edge and spilling onto the stovetop. We have a glass stovetop right now, so it’s not really a huge deal, but there’s still quite a mess to clean up afterwards. There’s hard, crusty, burnt salt water that needs to be cleaned up.
This is what it’s like when we can’t control our temper. It boils over and just makes a mess of everything. Instead of just containing the anger, turning down the heat, and moving on, we end up with a mess to clean up that wasn’t part of the original plan.
Rage is not some sign of manliness. Not being in control of oneself is not a sign of manliness. Lashing out at other is not a sign of manliness. Yet, so many men think that intimidating others in their rage is the route to take. These are not men. These are children who have no idea how to handle themselves. My children do this from time to time. They throw a fit. And, do you know what we do? We tell them that it’s inappropriate and there are better ways of handling our frustrations.
Again, I’m not perfect. I lose my temper at times. I raise my voice. It happens more often when I’m really tired because those are my most vulnerable times; those are the times I am less in control of myself. But there’s a better way. As Marcus points out, courtesy and kindness — especially when we don’t want to be — that’s what really defines us.
So, stop being a cry baby. Stop letting your rage take over. Show some semblance of self-control, and in doing so, you will become more human than before.
