That is, by never getting into a temper. Such men without feeling are scarcely to be considered men... To feel strongly on occasion is something personal: birds soon mock at the mawkin. It is a sign of good taste to combine bitter and sweet. All sweets is diet for children and fools...
Baltasar Gracián, 1647 (tr. Joseph Jacobs, 1892)
Endless mildness is not a virtue; past a point it becomes a defect that invites others to walk over you. The person who never shows temper, who absorbs every provocation without ever pushing back, teaches everyone around him that he has no limits to respect, and the birds soon learn to mock the scarecrow that never moves. To feel strongly on the right occasion, and to show it, is a mark of being a real person with real boundaries, not a failure of goodness. The counsel is to combine bitter with sweet, to keep some salt in your manner, because unrelieved sweetness reads as weakness and gets treated as such. This is not a licence for temper; it is permission, even obligation, to have and defend a limit, so your goodness is chosen rather than simply exploited.
Practice
- Keep some salt with the sweet; unrelieved mildness reads as the absence of limits and gets treated that way (maxim 243's serpent applies here too).
- Show strong feeling on the right occasion; a defended boundary marks a real person, and the scarecrow that never moves is soon mocked.
- Make your goodness chosen, not merely exploited; the capacity to push back is what keeps kindness from being taken as licence.
Use this when
- Use this if you are consistently mild and find people crossing your limits; the missing salt is the problem, not too little patience.
- Use it in leadership and parenting, where all-sweetness teaches that the rules carry no weight (a WORK and KIDS concern both).
Ignore this when
- Don't read this as licence for temper or harshness; the aim is a defended limit shown on the right occasion, not habitual anger (maxim 207 keeps the reins on).
- Don't withhold genuine kindness; the counsel adds salt to the sweet, it does not replace it.
A picture of it
Gentle and accommodating to a fault, a team lead never once shows displeasure, and slowly learns what unrelieved sweetness teaches: deadlines slip, commitments are ignored, and his people treat his limits as nonexistent because he has never shown one. The birds had begun to mock the scarecrow. When he finally lets real displeasure show on a genuine occasion, drawing one firm line, the effect is immediate, and the respect he could not earn by endless niceness arrives at once. He does not become harsh; he simply adds the salt the sweetness had been missing, and his goodness, now backed by a limit, is finally taken seriously.
The person with no temper has no limits others will respect. Season the sweet with salt, and let your goodness be chosen, not exploited.