Jody's Quote of the Week

"Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves that anger and annoy us." Marcus Aurelius

I want to point out that he uses the word "our" which to me is a reminder that it's "our anger" and "our annoyance" not the world's. The world is not in charge of how we feel or how we react to things. We have to own our actions and reaction. There is no "He/she made me_______." That make us victims of the world because we believe everything happens and we have no power to do anything about it. But that's not so. We are interactive with the world and we choose our actions and reactions especially as we become more aware.

I also want to point out that he says that it's "detrimental." Chemically speaking the body takes on the emotion we are feeling. So angry emotions have a different chemical composition in the body than happiness emotions do. Anger and annoyance chemistry is the chemistry of stress and fight or flight. Happiness chemistry is stay and play.

Here is a blogpost about the effects of anger on the body: Enjoy.