Catching Myself Earlier Each Time

The best part of changing, of ridding ourselves of bad habits, is when we begin to see ourselves while we are doing what we want to stop doing, and eventually that becomes, catching ourselves before we do it.

I have a thing about rude drivers, discourteous drivers, mostly because I am a very conscientious and courteous driver and try not only to allow others to go ahead if they seem in more of a hurry, but I try to spot those potentially about to need to move into an opening that I could make, which I then do.

Well today I was leaving my neighborhood, turning left onto busy Gilbert road, and a tall XTerra pulled up on my right side completely obscuring my view of traffic to the right, forcing me to have to wait until she moved on before I could see if it were clear to go.

What happened next made my blood boil in an instant.  She pulled straight out into the gap of the median and made the left turn I was sitting there to make, so I instantly laid on my horn and of course yelled "Hey!"  Since it was now clear to go, I zipped out into my left turn and instantly thought, "what am I doing?"  "I couldn't go until she went, and here I am, so what did I really lose, besides an imaginary place in line?"

I caught up to her in the empty lane to her right but instead of looking left or saying anything else, I just went on my way, smiling and thought, "she might have decided after getting there that she wanted to go to Walgreens first before heading south, it could be anything," but certainly there was not one good reason to treat this as an affront to me.

I would like to say here that I had just earlier read in an Eckhart Tolle book on the Power of Now, that there is no pain or emotional hurt that is caused by anything outside of ourselves.  It is our thoughts about a situation that determine whether we will be hurt, or angry, or peaceful from that point on. All emotional response to any situation is 100% based on our views and thoughts regarding the persons, or situations involved. 

I saw that again today as I completely removed myself from anger by changing what I thought she had meant by her actions.  It was that quick, and that complete.  The time it takes for us to change away from our bad habits can be the time it takes to change the way we see ourselves or others around us, or maybe the way we see why we are here in this life, or why we are where we are at any given moment.

Gratitude is one thing that can help change a lot of anger and hurt inspiring thoughts and replace them with peaceful ones.  It takes real effort sometimes to change course once on a particular one, but the ease of changing course can also depend upon our resolve to change our lives.  My changes seem to be happening at a quicker pace each day, and for that also, I am grateful.