I’ve written about outrage before. It is, as my son Mark says, America’s favorite indoor sport. Sahil Bloom wrote about anger recently, and it’s too good not to pass on. After all, we remember a story better than we remember ideas:

When I was a kid, my grandfather told me the story of the Buddha and the Angry Man:

One day, the Buddha was walking through a village when a young man approached and began yelling at him.

​"You are a fake! How can you claim to have wisdom to teach others? You know nothing!"

​The Buddha paused and smiled at the young man, which further angered him.

​"What do you have to say to me? I attack you and you just smile?"

​The Buddha replied: "If you buy a gift for someone and that person doesn't accept it, to whom does the gift belong?"

​The young man, agitated, replied that the gift would still belong to him, because he was the one who had bought it.

​The Buddha nodded: "The same applies to your anger. If you come to me with anger, but I choose not to accept it, the anger still belongs to you. You are the only one who is moved by it."

This story offers two powerful lessons that we all need to hear:

1. Vocalizing anger and outrage often creates more damage internally than it creates impact externally. Think about whether there is a more effective pathway to voice your perspectives if impact is the goal.
2. If someone comes to you with anger, always remember that you can choose not to accept it.

Both lessons are worth contemplating as you navigate life in the days, weeks, and months ahead… – Sahil Bloom, November 9, 2024

Good counsel:

• You are the only one moved by your anger.
• Vocalizing anger and outrage often creates more damage internally than it creates impact externally.
• If impact is the goal, there are more effective ways to communicate than with anger.

Good counsel, confirmed by Scripture:

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. (James 1.19, 20, NIV)