When we assent to the combination of that bare impression with a valued judgment, such as that driver is a rude, obnoxious, bad human being, and is a threat to me, then we create psychological distress. The stoics call this an instance of pathos, a negative emotion. Most importantly, the stoics teach us that this bad emotion isn't the product of the original event itself. Instead, the negative emotion arises as a result of assenting to the judgment about that event. If you had stopped withassent to the impression of immediate danger and breaked accordingly, thenegative emotion would not have arisen.
This episode is a continuation of Episode 8, which covered the theoritical aspect of the this spiritual exercise. This episode cover the practice of this spiritual exercise. The Discipline of Assent blog post is currently being rewritten to reflect the material covered in these two podcast episodes.