Look before you judge the offender

Pull the week together. You named anger as a short madness, saw that it waits for your consent, learned to delay, learned how small the trigger usually is, saw that it works against the very cooperation work runs on, and carried all of it home. One thread runs through every day: the heat shrinks the moment you look harder at it.

Seneca's last instruction looks straight at the person who wronged you: "Let us examine the disposition and purpose of the offender" (Of Anger 2.30, Stewart). Maybe the coworker who snapped was running on no sleep. Maybe the order was given to them and they had no choice. Maybe what looks like an insult is just someone clumsy under pressure. "Who but an unjust person," he asks, "can be angry with what is done under compulsion?" You don't have to excuse the harm. You just have to find out what it really was before you sentence anyone for it.

That examining is where this week opens into the next. Once you've looked closely enough to see the person behind the offense, the anger has somewhere to go besides your gut. Next week takes the step after: setting down the grudge you've been carrying, even when the wrong was real.