Anger is one of the seven deadly sins. Anger is also a fact of life, something viewed by most as negative and some as inescapable. The good news though is that more and more people are realizing that anger is something that can actually be overcome. It is inescapable as a spontaneous emotion but not inescapable as a lasting one.

Robert Thurman, a leading author in Buddhism and Eastern Philosophy, delves deeper into the issue of anger approaching it using ancient Buddhism wisdom. The book “Anger” explains how anger, if guided by wisdom, can actually not just be tempered but actually wielded to bring positive results such as the easing of human suffering. This is actually something that the great Aristotle will agree with, after all he believes that anger is not necessarily evil but actually necessary for fighting evil. In fact Aristotle teaches that anger can be a virtue if one is angered by those that are wicked and so strive to not become like the wicked and even fight their evil deeds.

In every day life though what I believe we should start learning is simply letting go of toxic anger so as to be able to leave in peace. As Buddha and Marcus Aurelius teaches us, holding on to anger can hurt us more than its cause can.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. ~ Buddha

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it. ~ Marcus Aurelius

There are no strangers to loneliness, after all we have all experienced how to be lonely at some point in our lives. Thomas Dumm recognizes this fact and delves on what it really means lonely in his book “Loneliness as a Way of Life”.

According to the Harvard University Press, Dumm “takes us beyond social circumstances and into the deeper forces that shape our very existence as modern individuals. The modern individual, Dumm suggests, is fundamentally a lonely self. This book challenges us, not to overcome our loneliness, but to learn how to re-inhabit it in a better way.”

This takes me back to one of my favorite poet’s work – Letters to a Young Poet (Letter Number Six). There Rainer Maria Rilke tells us to embrace solitude and why. Here’s a snippet from letter # 6:

But when you notice that it [solitude] is vast, you should be happy; for what (you should ask yourself) would a solitude be that was not vast; there is only one solitude and it is vast, heavy, difficult to bear…be attentive to what is arising within you…What is happening in your most innermost self is worthy of your entire love; somehow you must find a way to work at it…

And letter #8:

So you mustn’t be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall.

Now if ever there was an expert in loneliness I would say that would be Rainer Maria Rilke.