The topic for our morning meeting was letting go of impatience. My impatience generally disguises itself as self-righteous
anger (SRA) in the form of “they are not doing it right”. Being stuck behind cars driving slower than
the speed limit 3-abreast down a 3-lane freeway lights up my SRA.
I get annoyed by their ignorance, deliberate obtuseness and
selfishness. It is not that I am in a
hurry or am late. I allow myself to be
annoyed by stupid drivers in a variety of forms. I hate tail-gating the car in front of
me. Stuck behind weird driving causes
others to then also drive erratically which takes the form of cutting me
off. I then have to take change my
following distance to avoid being repeatedly cutoff or else have cars speed in
front of me only to hit their brakes because they are still stuck behind the
same selfish motorists—only now they are one car closer to being where they
want to go.
My SRA is not limited to driving situations. That was just an example that did not involve
me being egregiously in the wrong. My
defects of character consisting of varying combinations of the 7 deadly sins (wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony) serve to fuel my anger. Greed and pride probably provide the most
fuel.
Fear is the real source of all my fuel. Simplistically, there are two
kinds of fear: fear of not getting what I want and fear of losing something I
already have. Being afraid of not
getting “my share” or “my turn”. I don’t
know if it is greed, pride or gluttony that trigger my SRA per the freeway
example and am not sure it matters beyond intellectual naval gazing.
I do know as I become more spiritually fit, I have fewer and shorter
bouts of SRA that are more often immediately followed by a prompt admission of
wrong-doing on my part when possible.
I am grateful to enjoy my enhanced spirituality and for spending less
time in self-righteous anger.
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