Your Mileage May Vary is an advice column offering you a new framework for thinking through your ethical dilemmas and philosophical questions. This unconventional column is based on value pluralism — the idea that each of us has multiple values that are equally valid but that often conflict with each other. Here is a Vox reader’s question, condensed and edited for clarity.

I grew up with a mother who was very frequently angry and completely willing to show it in tone of voice and facial expression, with no concern for others’ emotional needs. My dad was the opposite — rarely angry, easygoing, affectionate, fun. As a child I argued with my mom a lot, but when I was about 13 I made up my mind that I did not want to be an angry person like her. I wanted to be like my dad. With the help of religion, I did a lot of introspection and learned a level of anger self-control that I didn’t previously have.

However, all my life I’ve occasionally “lost it,” reverting to the early patterns I learned from my mom rather than the later patterns I copied from my dad. On such occasions, which happen about once a year when I’ve found someone’s behavior outrageous, I end up feeling really guilty afterward. I feel that I have polluted the world with my outburst, my willingness to give in to reactivity. This guilt goes on for a while, and then, after I’ve apologized for the intensity of my reaction and the person I yelled at and I have discussed the aggravating situation more rationally, I feel a little better. But not completely better.

I told a good friend about all this, and he suggested that I could address the painful lingering guilt by meditating a little while. I appreciate meditation, but I wonder if it’s a bad idea to meditate away or shrug off the feeling of guilt. It seems risky to the goal of being a moral person to get in the habit of transcending guilt. And yet … guilt clearly can get all out of proportion at times. With both anger and guilt, how can we tell when these emotions are justified and useful, and when they’re excessive and unnecessary?

Dear Angry at Anger,

Around 2,500 years ago, the Ancient Greeks put on an amazing play that gets at the heart of your question. I’m talking about The Eumenides by the playwright Aeschylus, and I’m going to tell you its story because I think it can help you.

In the play, the goddess Athena swoops into Athens to see what’s got everyone so riled up. Turns out there’s been a murder, and the Furies — walking, frothing embodiments of anger in Ancient Greek mythology — want to exact revenge. They argue that it’s necessary: If we don’t stick up for people who’ve been wronged, wrongdoers will feel emboldened to keep harming others. But Athena thinks blood vengeance is no way to run a civilization.

So the goddess initiates two transformations. First, she replaces the Furies with a court of law to judge the defendant fair and square. But, recognizing that the powerful Furies can’t just be dismissed, she offers them a place to live beneath the city, where they’ll be revered by the citizens as long as they accept the constraints of the law. In other words, anger is not to be banished — only contained.

But this deal doesn’t fully satisfy the Furies: They feel dishonored, like animals in a........

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