I found myself watching with half amusement, half fury as a car pulled out right in front of me while I was in a parking lot nearing my grocery. Had I been looking away for an instant, we would have crashed. Did this stupid driver just think I was going to stop out of the goodness of my heart when he pulled right in front of me? I had no choice, but I did honk appropriately.
And the other day a car stopped in the middle of the road—really—I’m guessing to correct his GPS and make sure he was on the right path to get to his destination.
Two examples of accidents waiting to happen.
When I realized just how angry I was and how often I was angry while driving, it made me sit up and think. What’s going on that’s causing all this anger, and are other people out there as angry as I am.
What I discovered was a lot of information on anger, with a few interesting statistics: 84% of people surveyed said they believe people are angrier now than they were a generation ago, 42% said they were angrier this year than they were last year or earlier, and while 16.9 million people said they have experienced anger issues, more than 70% said they believe their anger is due to underlying emotions like hurt, frustration or fear.
What gets you worked up or angry? Is it someone in your office, or an in-law, or is he/she just the catalyst for something else? For me, I realized my anger came from something other than bad drivers. After all, they’d been around forever without me allowing them to impact my peace of mind. And, of course, I’m sure I’ve done my fair share of poor driving in the past as well.
If you happen to have suddenly discovered bad drivers in your area, or if something else is suddenly taking up unwanted space in your head, the really great news is we have an array of tools to manage negative emotions. We get to step back, make choices, take responsibility and change our behavior to get rid of what we don’t want, and attract more of what we do want in our lives. As I’ve said many times, happiness is a skill and a choice. Misery is optional, and so is joy.
