The Little Book of Stoicism

Chapter 4

The Villain: Negative Emotions Get in the Way

“Once [anger] begins to carry us away, it is hard to get back again into a healthy condition, because reason goes for nothing once passion has been admitted to the mind . . . The enemy must be met and driven back at the outermost frontier-line: for when he has once entered the city and passed its gates, he will not allow his prisoners to set bounds to his victory.” – Seneca

Happiness seems pretty doable, right? For the Stoics, it only consists in how we respond to events, and what we make of them. Aligning our actions with virtue is sufficient (but also necessary) for the happy and smoothly flowing life. So what happens? Why don’t we all get there with a snap of the fingers?

Life gets in the way. Reality erects itself in front of us; it catches us by surprise, seems overwhelming, causes fear, insecurity, anger, and grief, and makes us want to run away and hide. Things are tougher than we thought, and they happen differently than we expected and wished for, and we’re struggling to deal with them effectively, or even to accept them in the first place. But wait! Stoicism teaches that external events do not matter and that we must get any good from ourselves. It only seems that life gets in the way; in reality, it’s our negative emotions that get in the way. These intense emotions conquer our mind, actually our whole being, make it impossible to think clearly, and urge us to do the opposite of what we think is right.

Once our mind has been captured by negative emotions, or passions as the Stoics call them, such as irrational fear, grief, anger, or greed, these passions take over, and we react impulsively without being able to think about it. As Seneca says in the opening lines to this chapter, once the enemy has entered the mind, reason is gone. It’s one or the other, reason or passion; when passion is at the steering wheel, reason is tied up and gagged in the trunk.

Negative emotions naturally feel bad; think of grief, fear, jealousy, or strong cravings. So with the emotion in the driver’s seat, and with something inside feeling bad, our number one priority (unconsciously) becomes to feel better, and we automatically seek relief of the pain we’re feeling. The negative emotion orders us to do what makes us feel better and relieve the pain in the present moment, regardless of our values and long-term goals. We end up pushing aside our deep values, and instead walk away like a coward, order pizza and tiramisu, binge-watch Marvel movies, smash doors and glasses, shout at our friends and kids, and buy those black high heels we don’t need.

Negative emotions can take countless forms. They can swallow us completely like intense anger which creates a sudden tunnel vision that simply lets us act out—bam!—and it’s happened. They can be much calmer like excessive grief which can leave us full of self-pity, depressive thoughts, and complete inaction. Or they can be very subtle like “just not feeling like it,” which can stem from different emotions and causes us simply to not do what we know we should be doing (ever heard of procrastination?).

For example, when I was a teenager, a friend of mine got beaten up by another guy from school. Other kids and I were watching, and I knew it would be right to help, but something inside was holding me back; I didn’t feel like helping, I was afraid. The emotion won. Or all the times I saw some beautiful girl in a bar and wanted to say hello, but at the same time I didn’t feel like it. I was afraid. The emotion won most times. Of course I had some great excuses; she wasn’t that pretty, I just wasn’t in the mood, I was there for the good time with the lads, and so on.

It doesn’t really matter which emotions get in the way—for me it’s obviously fear in many cases (I’m working on it), for you it might be anger, greed, resentment, or pride. The problem with these emotions is not that they exist, but that they overwhelm us so that we end up doing the opposite of what we ought to do. And as we learned earlier, our rational actions are at the root of our happiness, therefore we can’t live a happy life when we let strong emotional disturbances dictate our actions. The Stoics believed that such passions are toxic to the good life and cause misery for many people. The majority of us are enslaved by these emotions; we too often act according to our emotions instead of our values.

So the Stoics want us to overcome these irrational fears and desires, so that we’re able to act according to virtue and attain true happiness. Also, oftentimes, these emotions are against our rational nature as they ignore what is truly good. When I’m afraid to say hello to some girl, this fear and my inaction goes completely against virtue—it’s unwise and irrational to fear what’s not dangerous, it lacks self-discipline for not overcoming the inner resistance, and it’s simply cowardly. It’s essential to overcome these negative emotions if we want to practice Stoicism. This is why a key part of the Stoic philosophy is to prevent the onset of negative emotions, and to be prepared to deal with them effectively and not get overwhelmed if they arise nevertheless (and they will!)

So what’s the secret? There’s not really a secret (sorry!). However, there are specific practices that’ll help you prepare for challenging situations. (These practices are covered in the second part of this book.) After a quick side note, we’ll look at the two main reasons why negative emotions conquer us in the first place. When we can minimize these two, then we’ll consequently get less negative emotions, and we’ll get better at dealing with them.

Attention: Our human brain is built for survival, not thriving. Our ancestors’ main goals were to survive and replicate. Food and water were scarce. And there were many dangers, so they were constantly on the lookout for dangerous animals and rival clans. That’s why our brains developed a negativity bias—if they got caught by surprise by a wolf, they were dead. On the other hand, if they missed an opportunity for food, they still had another chance. So it was more important to focus on the negative rather than the positive.

And today, we still have these same brains—constantly checking if what’s happening around us is dangerous. Because of our evolution, we see obstacles much better than opportunities. It’s in our nature to worry about health, wealth, and social status. It seems we need those for survival. Therefore, we automatically compare ourselves to others, focus on possible dangers, and chase more and more stuff.

So don’t worry if you think you’re always negative, that’s normal. That’s just the built-in negativity bias of our brain. However, that’s highly counterproductive in the modern world as, after all, we’re very safe and have enough food—therefore, survival can be ticked off for the most part. Nothing is going to attack you at night, and no rival clan will burn down your hut. The point is, these negative emotions get in the way and we must try to minimize them and the effects they have on our lives. Let’s now look at the two main reasons why we get overwhelmed by negative emotions.

We Want What’s Beyond Our Control

“Passion is produced no otherwise than by a disappointment of one's desires.” Epictetus makes the point that negative emotions arise when we don’t get what we want. This disappointment “is the spring of sorrow, lamentation, and envy; this renders us envious and emulous, and incapable of hearing reason.”

Basically, negative emotions come from wanting and fearing what’s not under our control. As we learned earlier, the root cause of our suffering stems from worrying about stuff outside our control. These are faulty value judgments; we value some indifferent external thing as good or bad. For example, mistakenly judging material things as good or desirable is the cause of cravings for wealth and pleasure. Such strong craving is a negative emotion that takes over the steering wheel and lets us do whatever satisfies the craving for the moment, regardless of our values. Because we’re incapable to hear reason, remember, reason is tied up and gagged in the trunk.

Faulty value judgments also work the other way around. We mistakenly judge some indifferent external event such as rain, annoying people, or poverty as bad or even terrible, and this wrong judgment about the event causes anger or fear. So it’s the wrong judgment about an event that causes the negative emotions, and these emotions, again, get in the way of a happy life because they let us act impulsively rather than rationally.

Donald Robertson says it well in his book Stoicism and the Art of Happiness, “The majority of ordinary people lack fulfillment and peace of mind because their values are confused and internally conflicted. We waste our lives chasing after an illusion of Happiness, based on a mixture of hedonism, materialism and egotism—crazy, self-defeating values absorbed from the foolish world around us.”

We desire and fear external things beyond our direct control; we naively judge indifferent things such as health, wealth, and reputation as good and even necessary for the happy life, and we also judge sickness, poverty, and ridicule as bad and hindering to the happy life. These desires and fears about external things are a bright blinking warning sign that says, “You forgot the basics! Go back and engrain the core beliefs.” In other words, we haven’t yet second natured the basic Stoic principles that virtue is the only true good, that what’s not within our control is ultimately indifferent, and that we are solely responsible for our flourishing. As long as we feel that things happen for or against us, that dog shit makes a miserable day, and a bonus makes a happy one, as long as we’re afraid of not getting what we want and feel bad about not getting it—we’re only a puppet to our emotions, caused by faulty judgments about what’s truly good and bad.

“You are silly,” Epictetus says, “[if] you would have the things which are not in your power to be in your power, and the things which belong to others to be yours.” If we could carefully separate between the things which are up to us and the things which are not, and focus on those up to us and let the rest happen as it will, then we’d get much less jerked around by the negative emotions caused by faulty judgments.

However, even if we set out to do exactly that, there’s something else that often gets in the way: unconsciousness. We’re not aware enough in situations and forget to focus on what we can control; instead, we get carried away by our initial impressions and will only realize later that we misjudged the event. A lack of awareness is the second reason for negative emotions to arise and take us over.

We Lack Awareness and Get Carried Away by Impressions

Do you remember that the Stoics want us to pay massive attention to our every action? Just like when we’re paying attention not to stand on bits of broken glass? Well, guess what happens when we don’t bring such attention into challenging situations? We get carried away by our first impressions without being able to check them. These first impressions are like tendencies to act a certain way, but when we’re aware enough, we can step in and choose our best response, which is most certainly different to the first impression.

Here’s an example that happened to me when I took a toilet break. I got up from my writing chair, walked to the toilet, when the new pack of toilet paper on the flushing tank caught my attention. I bought it yesterday when I did my grocery shopping, and it was necessary to do so. After seeing it, my mind immediately went, “Yeah, you did very well buying it. Nils (my brother I live with) didn’t even notice. No signs of gratitude, and so on.” Feelings of light anger and unease started to arise within, and my mind went on rationalizing itself, “Well, he did say thank you for buying the groceries. And he does many other things in the household, and so on.” Fortunately I was aware enough to recognize this thought pattern, stepped in, and called it off as classic ego-wants-recognition mind battle. The negative feelings were gone in the blink of an eye.

What happened exactly? The situation new toilet paper caused an automatic first impression of such and such is bad with a tendency toward getting angry. Thankfully, I was aware enough, recognized it, and could call it off immediately. If it would have been a more challenging situation, then I’d have been able to use reason, or just cold hard logic, and look at the situation objectively. I’d have said to myself that doing the right thing is enough, it’s a reward in itself, and doesn’t need recognition from someone else. Now, if I’d been unaware of that irrational impression, I’d have gotten angry and frustrated and entered my brother’s room and kicked him in the face. Or, more likely, the negative impression would have carried me away and I would have been lost in thought for a time while being irrationally angry with my brother.

That’s why unawareness is so dangerous: While being unaware, we can’t observe and recognize our first impressions and would mindlessly follow along. As Epictetus says, “When you have let your mind loose, it is no longer in your power to recall it, either to propriety, or to modesty, or to moderation: but you do everything that comes into your mind in obedience to your inclinations.” That’s exactly what we learned earlier—once passion has taken over, we obey like a dog that smells sausage. Reason can shout and whistle her lungs out, but we can’t hear her because we’re completely absorbed by passion’s sausage.

Look, one could argue that the reason for the negative emotions to take over even in this case is the faulty judgment, not the unawareness. The emotions arise because of the irrational judgment that my brother is ungrateful. However, one could also argue that many faulty judgments happen because we’re not aware enough in the first place. We’re not aware of our every step and end up in dog shit. Or my mom isn’t aware enough to know how much of her cup of coffee she’s already drank so she ends up wondering, “Who drank my coffee?” Sure, she might value coffee too highly (is that even possible?), but the reason behind that faulty judgment is her unawareness while drinking it herself—in most cases (sorry mom, sometimes I took a sip or two).

The point is, being aware will reduce the times we get taken over by negative emotions. This is important because getting taken over by negative emotions is exactly what hinders us from taking the right actions and getting the good life. Remember, for the Stoics, the only good lies in our voluntary actions, and our actions can only be voluntary when we’re bringing awareness into every moment. If we lack that awareness, we permit ourselves to get carried away and let our actions become shameful and disregardful, to use Epictetus’ words. Only by bringing awareness into the moment, we can properly confront the challenge of accepting external events with equanimity, while cultivating wisdom, justice, and self-discipline in our reactions. With that awareness, we can try to follow Epictetus’ advice to endure and renounce in everyday situations:

We should endure what we irrationally fear and dislike with courage and perseverance.

We should renounce (or abstain from) what we irrationally crave through discretion and self-discipline.

We definitely need awareness to detect irrational fears and cravings before we can endure them with courage and perseverance, or abstain from them with discretion and self-discipline. Awareness, however, won’t be enough. Not everybody can stare fear in the eyes and do it anyway. I often can’t. Even if I’m aware enough to recognize my fear while knowing the fear is irrational and it would be the wise thing to act despite the fear, the emotion often beats my courage. Another example is the battle between an irrational desire and self-discipline. After a long day of work and persevering with my tasks, I observe the desire to check some news. I’m well aware of the battle between the pleasurable desire and my deflating willpower, and most times willpower wins, but sometimes I give in to the desire.

Awareness might not be enough to always act accordingly to our values, but it surely buys you time and delay, so you see the situation clearly and can at least try to make the rational decision. This will make it way easier to master yourself, act rationally, and make progress toward the happy and smoothly flowing life. And it will prevent you many times from getting carried away by irrational emotions, and you’ll step into folly (and dog shit) less frequently.

Step by step, you get ahead.