My brother just had a baby and my girlfriend and I were on the way to the hospital for a visit. We held hands, sang along to the latest Miley Cyrus, and enjoyed a perfect summer evening in Southern California. Could life be any better? As I was trying to make a left into the turn lane, I hesitated, thus holding up the guy in the car behind me.
The guy went apeshit bananas leaning on his horn as if avoiding a runaway freight train. In my rear view mirror, I saw his face which was heightened with even more emotion than the lady whose boob I accidentally grabbed in a yoga class in 2003.
If you aren’t the one raging, surely you’ve encountered similar outbursts of anger, impatience, and hostility. Earlier this week, a 28-year-old man was arrested after a road rage incident in which police say he pointed a loaded shotgun at a family with children in the back seat. Or maybe you heard about the guy who stabbed another man with a screwdriver after arguing over a parking spot.
Have you not found yourself wanting to cuss the slow Starbucks barista, or pound your fist when the internet is down, or glare at the woman in yoga class who moans during every single pose?
Why are we so impatient, angry, and hostile?
*****
Author Abraham Heschel writes that most of us live in the realm of space. We worship things, property, and technology that enable us to fill and conquer our surroundings. I would argue that at the expense of becoming more connected with the space around us, we’re becoming less and less connected with the space within us. When we lack access to our depth. we’re bound to lash out like a rabid dog or a starving bear or Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman.
Heschel describes the importance of “the sacred”…whether it be a place or a day or a time. Without the sacred, the world feels like a confining space where something as simple as a moan in yoga class is as lethal as a shart on a road trip. God knows if you’ve ever sharted on a road trip, that rest stop 30 miles back sure would have been a better option. So before it gets ugly, let us all take a moment to pull over, get out, and as they did in the old days (ie the early 1990′s)…rest.
Thank you for making me laugh. And thank you for being “that place” I go to in order to be more appreciative, thoughtful, and smart. I always feel the urge to share your wisdom and humor with my friends and (to be painfully honest) the most random of people after reading your most recent blog posts….. My life would be far less reflective without your shedding light on the serious and the funny !
i stumbled upon your website by way of pure yoga nyc, i believe. i often get lost for hours on the internet and end up reading some of the coolest blogs…and, well, yours is one of them!
reading this post was a great reminder for me to slow down! we all move so quickly and have this expectation that everything needs to be immediate.
p.s. i cracked up reading the last sentence in the second paragraph.
Great advice for all of us David! It is interesting how some things won’t be dropped, while if we are in the “good life” frame of mind it’s like water off a duck’s back!
Good post. Most of the time I am a nice calm person, but so many times when I am not focusing on being “present” I find myself cussing and flipping the bird at other cars. Then I “wake up” and I’m like, why did I just do that? Do I really want to be known as a person who acts like that? What is my child thinking?
My husband makes fun of me and says I drive like an old woman because I try to take my time and not get angry when someone does something I don’t like but I have no control over anyhow.
Thank you. I was laid off (along with 300 other people at the company) last week. I’m not having a good day today – some guy backed in to me dented my bumper, my severance package is lost… you know. I was getting so angry – I got home and read this and it helps! You’re something special – for some reason you’re right there when I need someone saying just what I need to hear.
Hope to see you soon -
Wen