“People Who Rarely Get Angry Look Down on Others”—But It Means Nothing If You Still Have to Bow

Recently, I have often heard people on YouTube and elsewhere say that those who rarely get angry are actually looking down on the other person.

At first, I found the idea slightly surprising, but parts of the explanation made sense when I heard them.

Suppose a dog barks at you on the street.

An ordinary person would not shout back at the dog, “What kind of attitude is that? Apologize!”

You would simply think, “Oh, a dog is barking,” and walk past.

In other words, you do not get angry because you do not regard the dog as your equal.

The same thing can happen in human relationships.

Someone may remain calm when another person says something unreasonable or behaves rudely.

To those around them, they may appear gentle and broad-minded.

But inside, they may simply be thinking, “Oh, that idiot is saying something again.”

They are not calm because they are tolerant. They simply expect nothing from the other person in the first place.

Even If You Look Down on Them, You Still Have to Bow

But this raises a question.

Suppose an employee truly despises their boss.

The employee does not become angry even when the boss gives an unreasonable instruction.

They resign themselves to the thought, “This is simply the kind of person they are.”

Perhaps the employee believes that, mentally, they stand above the boss.

But what happens in reality?

Every morning, they greet that boss, follow pointless instructions, and take care not to upset them.

While thinking, “What an idiot my boss is,” they bow and say, “Understood.”

Can that really be free of stress?

If anything, having to bow every day to someone you consider an idiot seems likely to create even more stress.

A barking dog does not make you angry.

But if you had to bow to that dog every morning and work under its orders, the situation would be entirely different.

Looking Down on Someone Changes Nothing

In the end, looking down on someone in your mind does not change the actual balance of power.

You may hate your boss, but you cannot support yourself if you quit the company.

A client may be unreasonable, but losing the work would mean losing your income.

So you endure it.

And to justify that endurance, you tell yourself that you do not get angry because you are above the other person.

That may be an effective form of psychological self-defense.

But when you think about it calmly, are you not simply comforting yourself by looking down on the other person?

If you genuinely considered them unworthy of your attention, you could simply stop dealing with them.

Because you cannot do that, you see them every day, bow to them, and curse them silently.

You may believe that you have won psychologically, but in reality, their wishes still control your life.

What a pathetic victory.

In the End, It Is Impossible Without Independence

Then I noticed something else.

The people on YouTube and elsewhere who say that they remain calm because they look down on the other person are not actually salaried employees.

They are YouTubers, writers, or people who have some form of work of their own.

That explains why they can say such things.

They do not have to continue dealing with people they dislike.

When someone says something unreasonable, they do not need to persuade that person or keep them happy.

They can simply think, “So that is the kind of person they are,” and walk away.

For a salaried employee, however, it is not so easy.

No matter how much they look down on their boss, they must return to the office the next morning and listen to that boss’s instructions again.

In other words, the freedom to remain calm while looking down on someone may be supported not by spiritual discipline, but by financial independence.

I left salaried employment and became a freelancer myself, and I believe the greatest benefit was not the income. It was gaining the option to walk away from people I dislike.

If I dislike a job, I do not have to renew the contract. If someone is unreasonable, I do not have to work with them again.

To do that, however, you need enough skills and savings to choose your work.

In the end, a change in mindset alone cannot make you free.

You may think, “You are no better than a dog,” while wagging your tail at that same dog every morning.

At that point, it is hard to tell which one of you is the pet.