He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city: Proverbs 16:32
As I stumbled on this scripture this morning, it hit me so deep I could not resist the nudge to share these thoughts on it. The words of this scripture evoke the thoughts of self-mastery through first overcoming oneself. In other words, in order to become a master of yourself, you must first overcome yourself.
What do you overcome about yourself? Why do you need to overcome yourself? We need to overcome our members which lead us to make wrong judgments. We need to overcome our negative emotions: envy, bitter jealousy, hatred, bitterness, ego, fear, anger and more. This verse is specific on the emotion concerned: Anger.
Every emotion is a spirit. Anger is an emotion, so anger is a spirit. It is important that each of us know what we carry in our spirits. We need to know enough what we nourish through what and who we listen to. This morning I saw on the WhatsApp status of an old friend the following words: "If you have any issues with me, then you are mannerless and have a very big problem. May God help you." My friend was angry because she felt offended and hurt by what someone had done to her.
I had to offer the following words: Stop this, my friend. If you can, please delete that. You cannot be like this. I remember you telling me some years back while I had an issue with someone and I was about lashing out at the person and you cautioned me against reacting in anger and that I should let go. I think you should do the same. Don't settle your scores in public with someone you have had one or two good private dealings with in the past. It does not belong in the public domain. I speak as a friend. Try this prescription." My friend honoured my words, took down the post and sent me a message: My mind is settled.
Based on how we respond to people, we may need to keep them wondering, and guessing. Some persons are attention seekers. We must not give them the attention that they seek. The moment you allow them scratch you and they see your reaction, they know how to get at you. Some are sadists and they only find an occasion to hit at you. Do not pay attention to them by showing and sharing your hurt publicly.
Rather, be thankful to God for the experience and pray for them. It is a great gift. This may be hard for you at the initial but give it a try. When you do this, you gain strength. Forgive them but you may keep your distance; do not hit back at them. It is poor use of emotional energy. Do not gratify meanness. One day they shall return but you would have been wiser to deal.
Your peace of mind should be paramount to you. Do not trade your peace for just anything. Be a master of yourself by first being a master of your emotions.
When you have found yourself, when you have connected with the Higher Being within you and live in that consciousness, can you imagine the kind of person you have become and what transformation has happened in you? You have learnt to use self-control through self-regulation. You are bold though cautious. You stay focused on the path of calm, regardless of what others do to you. It is not what they do to you that matters. It is how you respond to what is done to you. That is one key to strengthening and sustaining your peace of mind.
The ability for you to rule over your spirit is an uncommon one. Like growth, it does not happen overnight. It is earned through much practice in intentional and deliberate living made out of a choice to be, more than to have. You choose and decide what you want to be and you go on to be that. It is an informed choice.
You are driven by the need to ensure and maintain inner peace instead of securing any external gratifications or pleasures. Your peace and inner fulfillment surpasses every other thing. You live based on the presence of mind of not searing your conscience because of carnal and sensual pleasures.
Inner peace comes at the cost of letting go and letting God. A huge price of subduing the ego is attached. Hubris or Pride is an enemy of peace. Greed may not be far from this because of the obvious inherent selfishness. Every trait, whether positive or negative, is accompanied by other like traits. Just as it is impossible to be fruitful alone, the same way it is impossible to have one trait or fruit alone. Some may only manifest before the others. But they are all present. It depends on what we feed on. The information we ingest is important.
He that has no rule or control over his spirit, the same is weak and his strength will fail in the day of adversity. The strength of such a person is small. Imagine your inability to keep calm under pressure. Imagine your inability to exercise control over what you cannot have and you have to go out of your way to incur debt to acquire same when you can actually do without it. You bowed to external pressure because of the company you keep.
Paul admonished that we should be swift to listen, slow to speak and slow to wrath. The antidote against anger is to be able to keep quiet when we are offended, to listen and afterwards walk away. It is great strength of self-mastery.
Effective emotional management is at the core of our personal effectiveness. This should be the anchor to our personal success. Where we lack this personal strength, of what use are the other successes we claim to have? Our inability to manage our emotions is a personal weakness that stems from our inability to control our spirit. This is what tends towards being irrational and narcissistic.
This is why you need to overcome yourself. You have to overcome yourself because you have to earn rationality over irrationality. A rational being is sane because he or she has mastered his or her spirit. An irrational being is otherwise and is bestial in his/her approach to things.
While being rational does not mean being without errors or mistakes, it does mean that you are aware of these things and you are making conscious and deliberate efforts to have them in check always. This is self-mastery through self-regulation earned from self-awareness.
Let me conclude on this note. A Tibetan Proverb ssys: It is better to live for one day as a tiger than to live for a thousand years as a sheep. My thoughts on this is that a tiger is created a tiger and a sheep is created a sheep. I will not become a tiger if I am made a sheep. What is important for me is to be aware of myself, to know who I am potentially and to actualize that. Nothing else matters. If we know who we are, we know our innate nature and core value index. That way, we know our limits and we do not become what we are not because others push us to. We are in control of our spirit and our emotions.
Conquering your negative emotions and re-directing them towards the positive is your greatest accomplishment yet. This is far greater than gaining the world, its allures and enticements.
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