Acting Angry at Annoyances

@Qaeyious (2357)
United States
August 16, 2008 10:46pm CST
One of my self-improvement projects is to get a handle on my emotions. There were too many things making me angry, and worse, keeping me angry. It was a luxury I could no long afford, because it was directly affecting my health: chest pains, stress, muscle tightness, even hyperventilation in some cases. It was probably one of the reasons I was using alcohol excessively, and those of you who are wise know that excessive alcohol is always bad medicine. It was recently pointed out to me that many of these things I get angry about are annoyances, and the proper response to annoyances is to be annoyed, not angry. I am definitely not alone in this. Road rage would be the perfect example. I stopped driving a car because I couldn't handle it any more. My biggest pet peeve was those who think that because they have no regard to courtesy, safety, and the law mean that everyone else should drive like they do, and they end up trying to run law-abiding citizens off the road, cut in front of them and slamming on their brakes, tailgating, etc. There is no excuse for this behavior, no matter how badly the other drivers are not following their guidelines to proper driving. I passed a milestone today. Mather Field light rail station has a pedestrian crosswalk with traffic lights. Press the button, and eventually the traffic lights will turn red, the walk icon will light up, and pedestrians can safely pass. Allegedly. Today, one car did not stop. I crossed half-way OK, but on starting the second half (there is a narrow meridian on this Folsom Boulevard) I noted that I was hearing a rather close engine sound (my attention was the other direction, where I expected the light rail I wanted to take would come from), and I turned just in time to see the car brush past me. The driver gave me a look as he passed by. It was neither remorse nor apology. It was anger. The only reaction I had (after the initial fear, of course, and verifying that the lights were working) was what a great post this would be. No dwelling on this vicious violent criminal roaming the streets targeting pedestrians, no fantasies of breaking his windows as he went past, ... ... I don't think I'm even annoyed at this point. I am wondering if he is fuming about the audacity of pedestrians being able to stop traffic legally on Folsom Boulevard ... And if that is so, I would find it rather of sad.
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