--- title: "You're not too sensitive. You react too fast." description: "If you take offence quickly, you're rarely too sensitive; you react too fast. Marcus Aurelius's morning exercise, three decisions and a 7-day protocol." url: https://dailyinspire.ch/en/blogs/dont-overreact-anger-calm-marcus-aurelius/ language: en published: 2026-11-09T07:00:00+01:00 updated: 2026-11-09T07:00:00+01:00 author: Kacper publisher: DailyInspire.ch topics: ["Motivation", "Emotions"] image: https://dailyinspire.ch/dateien/uploads/2026/11/20261109-060200-b682e24d.webp translation: https://dailyinspire.ch/Blog/nicht-ueberreagieren-aerger-gelassenheit-marc-aurel/ reading_time_minutes: 7 --- # You're not too sensitive. You react too fast. *A curt sentence, someone pushing in, a comment, and your day is ruined? Why overreacting costs you twice and how Marcus Aurelius's morning exercise keeps you calm.* ![DailyInspire bull above the German line "Du bist nicht zu sensibel. Du reagierst zu schnell." – You're not too sensitive. You react too fast.](https://dailyinspire.ch/dateien/uploads/2026/11/20261109-060200-b682e24d.webp) > **Key point:** **Key takeaways:** If you take offence quickly, you are usually not too sensitive. You lack the gap between trigger and reaction. Marcus Aurelius built that gap every morning: he fully expected to meet difficult people. Do what he did, and with every irritation make a decision first: ignore it, switch it off or address it calmly later. A colleague replies curtly. Someone pushes in at the checkout. A comment under your post. And your day is ruined. You call it sensitivity. In truth you've handed a stranger the key to your mood. And he didn't even ask for it. ## Why do little things upset you so much? Because there is no gap between trigger and reaction. A curt sentence becomes an attack, a look becomes a verdict, a forgotten greeting becomes disrespect. You aren't reacting to what happened. You are reacting to your interpretation of it. Epictetus summed this up in one sentence almost 2,000 years ago: people are disturbed not by things, but by their opinions about things. That is uncomfortable. Because it means your colleague didn't ruin your day. You took his sentence, enlarged it and then carried it around with you all day. > **Key point:** Other people decide what they say. You decide what it does to you. ## What does anger really cost you? More than the cause. Anger costs you twice: once in the moment, and then again every time you replay the scene in your head. In the shower. In the car. At 11 pm in bed. An example: the curt sentence took five seconds. If you go over it three more times in the evening, five minutes each time, it has cost you a quarter of an hour. Plus your mood for the evening. Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and Stoic, wrote about this in his Meditations: > "Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us." > Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.18, paraphrased Anger is one of the biggest energy leaks you have. How to find the others is in ["You have enough good ideas. Without energy they stay daydreams."](https://dailyinspire.ch/en/blogs/good-ideas-inner-energy-put-into-action/) ## Does it help to let your anger out? Usually not, even if it feels that way. In 2002 the psychologist Brad Bushman had angered participants hit a punching bag. Those who thought about the person who had angered them while doing it ended up angrier and more aggressive than the group that did nothing at all. Doing nothing worked better than "letting off steam" ([Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2002](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167202289002)). Anger is not a pressure cooker that empties when you open it. It is more like a fire. Blow into it and you get more of it. ## How did Marcus Aurelius prepare for difficult people? Every morning, before he met them. At the beginning of the second book of his Meditations there is an exercise he wrote down for himself: > "Say to yourself in the morning: today I shall meet meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious and unsociable people." > Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.1, paraphrased That isn't pessimism. It is a weather forecast. If you know it's going to rain, you take an umbrella and don't get annoyed by every drop. Elsewhere he goes one step further. When someone's shamelessness offends you, ask yourself: is it possible that there are no shameless people in the world? No. So don't demand the impossible (Meditations 9.42, paraphrased). > **Key point:** You don't have to change difficult people. You only have to stop being surprised by them. ## What do you do when someone offends you? You decide before you react. Every irritation has exactly three options, and all three are better than the reflex. 1. **Ignore it:** Ask yourself two questions. Does this person play a role in my life? Will this still matter in a year? Two noes mean: no reaction. That isn't swallowing it. It is a decision about your energy. 2. **Switch it off:** It hits you anyway? Then body first, mind second. Breathe out slowly three times, step outside for a moment, drink a glass of water. Write any written reply as a draft and send it tomorrow at the earliest. The draft may be angry. The message you send may not. 3. **Address it:** If a real boundary was crossed or it keeps happening, you address it. Later, calmly, factually, in one sentence: "When you said X, that wasn't okay for me. I don't want us to talk to each other like that." Calm doesn't mean defenceless. It means you set the timing and the tone. Not the other person. ## How do you train calm with the HMF method? With an honest score. The [1% rule](https://dailyinspire.ch/en/hmf-method-1-percent-daily-growth/) doesn't always mean more. Sometimes 1% better means calmer. One explosion fewer. Waiting a little longer before you reply. Calm is not a character trait you either have or don't. It is a skill you train like push-ups. Every moment in which you decide first and react second is a repetition. ## What does the 7-day protocol against overreacting look like? Prepare in the morning, decide in the moment, count in the evening. For seven days. 1. **Morning (2 minutes):** Write down Marcus Aurelius's sentence in your own version. For example: "Today I'll probably meet someone who annoys me. I decide before I react." 2. **In the moment (10 seconds):** Before you reply, ask the two questions: does this person play a role? Will this matter in a year? 3. **Decide:** Ignore it, switch it off or address it later. One of the three, consciously. 4. **In writing:** Every angry reply stays a draft until tomorrow. 5. **Evening (3 minutes):** Green if you decided first with every irritation today. Red if you reacted even once before deciding. A conflict you need to address goes on the [red card](https://dailyinspire.ch/en/blogs/red-card-review-day-unfinished-tasks/). 6. **Evaluate (day 7):** Which people, which situations, which time of day turn you red most often? Change one parameter. The trigger is often more mundane than you think: hunger, too little sleep, too many appointments. ## When is anger justified? When it points you to a real boundary violation or a real injustice. Then anger is a signal, not a programme. You take the signal seriously and turn it into a calm action: address it, set a boundary, change something. If your anger regularly gets out of control, hurts other people or yourself, that is not a matter for a blog post. Then you get support, for example from your doctor or a counselling service. That isn't weakness. It is responsibility. ## How does the planner help? In the morning you write your preparation sentence on the day page. One of the five tasks can be: "With any irritation, decide first." In the evening you mark green or red. Open conflicts move to the red card on the week page and are decided on review day. The planner is written in German. Details are on the [planner page](https://dailyinspire.ch/en/planner/). ## Frequently asked questions ### Isn't ignoring just suppressing? No. Suppressing means the anger stays inside you and keeps working. Ignoring means you consciously decide the cause isn't worth your energy. If the anger keeps coming back anyway, ignoring was the wrong choice. Then you switch it off or address it. ### How do I react to criticism that is justified? You separate content and tone. You take the content and leave the tone behind. A truth put unkindly is still a truth. If you only react to the tone, you miss the information. ### What if the same person keeps annoying me? Then it is no longer a moment but a pattern. Address it clearly once. If nothing changes, reduce your time with that person where you can. Why the people around you have so much influence is explained in ["It isn't impossible"](https://dailyinspire.ch/en/blogs/impossible-people-around-you-limits-bannister-seneca/). ### How is this different from "carrying other people's gravel"? That post is about letting go of old anger you're already carrying around. This one is about the moment before: stopping new anger from getting into the wheelbarrow in the first place. You'll find the first part in ["You carry yesterday, tomorrow and other people's gravel"](https://dailyinspire.ch/en/blogs/let-go-forget-irritations-wheelbarrow-upside-down/). ## Your task for today 1. **Prepare:** Write down your morning sentence now, in your own words. 2. **Name:** Below it, write your most frequent trigger. A person, a situation or a time of day. 3. **Count:** Tonight: green or red. There will always be people who annoy you. Marcus Aurelius had a whole empire full of them. You'll find more protocols on the [DailyInspire.ch blog](https://dailyinspire.ch/en/blogs/). > **Key point:** Whoever can surprise you can steer you. Whoever no longer surprises you can't. --- Source: [DailyInspire.ch](https://dailyinspire.ch/en/) – Kacper, November 9, 2026. Original: https://dailyinspire.ch/en/blogs/dont-overreact-anger-calm-marcus-aurelius/