How to Read “Storehouses don’t get built as fast as anger rises”
Hara no tatsu yō ni iekura tatanu
Meaning of “Storehouses don’t get built as fast as anger rises”
This proverb teaches that people with quick tempers cannot build wealth. When you get angry easily and lose your cool frequently, you can’t maintain the long-term perspective needed for success.
Economic achievement becomes nearly impossible for those who react emotionally to every setback.
In business and work, unfair situations and disappointments happen all the time. If you get angry at every frustration, you damage relationships and lose people’s trust.
You also lose the ability to make calm, rational decisions. Building wealth requires steady effort over time and the power to control your emotions.
People use this proverb to warn those with short tempers. It also appears in discussions about the patience needed for success.
Even today, it reminds us that rational judgment matters more than emotional reactions in business and life planning.
Origin and Etymology
The exact first written appearance of this proverb is unclear. However, its structure strongly reflects the everyday life experiences of common people during the Edo period.
“Iekura” means houses and storehouses, which symbolize wealth and property. For merchants and farmers in the Edo period, owning a storehouse proved economic success.
Storehouses that held rice and goods were visible signs of prosperity.
The interesting part is the phrase “as fast as anger rises.” People get angry frequently and easily. We feel irritated over small things and our emotions flare up quickly.
The proverb contrasts this “ease” and “frequency” with the “difficulty” and “time required” to build wealth.
Our ancestors observed people who lost their tempers with business partners or made emotional mistakes while running shops and family businesses. These observations likely created this proverb.
It became part of merchant ethics and life wisdom, teaching that patience and calmness are essential for building wealth. It probably spread through Edo townspeople culture as practical life advice.
Usage Examples
- That person proves “Storehouses don’t get built as fast as anger rises” – his business fails because he gets angry so quickly
- He had a short temper when young, but after understanding “Storehouses don’t get built as fast as anger rises,” he became remarkably calm
Universal Wisdom
This proverb has endured because it reveals a deep truth about the relationship between human emotions and success.
Anger is one of the hardest emotions for humans to control. It surges up instantly, paralyzes reason, and causes actions we later regret.
The troublesome thing is that anger really does arise frequently and easily. Just as the phrase “as fast as anger rises” suggests, daily life is full of things that make us angry.
On the other hand, building anything takes time. Trust, skills, and wealth cannot be gained overnight. Small daily efforts eventually become big achievements.
Our ancestors noticed the difference between these two timescales. Emotions explode in an instant, but results require long periods.
That’s why people controlled by emotions cannot achieve long-term goals. They learned from experience that one action driven by anger can instantly destroy everything built up until then.
This proverb teaches about a fundamental human weakness and the importance of overcoming it. The universal wisdom here is that the power to control emotions is the key to opening up your life.
When AI Hears This
The energy of anger and the energy of building a house have completely different properties from a physics perspective.
According to the second law of thermodynamics, energy always flows toward disorder. Hot coffee cools down if left alone, and neatly arranged blocks fall easily, but scattered blocks never arrange themselves spontaneously.
Anger as emotional energy is a perfect example of this movement toward disorder. When angry, your heart rate increases, body temperature rises, and adrenaline gets released.
This energy dissipates as heat inside your body and spreads as unpleasant atmosphere around you. In other words, anger is highly disordered energy release.
Building a house is the exact opposite. You take scattered lumber and stones and precisely assemble them based on blueprints and information.
You create a highly ordered structure. This is what physics calls “entropy decrease” – creating order from disorder.
However, this requires enormous planned energy input. Randomly released energy can never achieve this.
This proverb shows that human emotional phenomena face the same constraints as the physical laws of the universe. Disordered energy release creates nothing with order.
This truth applies equally to emotions and matter.
Lessons for Today
For those of us living in modern times, this proverb offers a chance to reconsider how we deal with emotions.
In an era when we can react instantly on social media, we exist in an environment that makes us more emotional than before.
When we see an unpleasant post, we immediately write angry comments. We quickly show our workplace stress in our attitude.
But aren’t these instant emotional releases damaging our long-term relationships and trust?
This proverb doesn’t teach us to suppress emotions. Feeling anger is natural. What matters is having the wisdom to not be controlled by that emotion and to pause before responding.
If you want to accomplish something, first observe your emotional patterns. Notice when you tend to feel angry and how that anger affects achieving your goals.
When you feel yourself getting emotional, remember this proverb. Ask yourself, “Which is more important right now – getting angry or reaching my goal?”
The power to control emotions is the most reliable asset for walking the long road of life.
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