Mindfulness Wrecked My Road Rage
From The Cushion To The Car Seat
*No bad drivers were (physically) harmed during the writing of this article.
It’s A Jungle Out There
While driving to work, I was listening to an Audible audio book by renowned Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Pema Chodron. At the beginning of the lecture, she asked listeners to choose one area of their lives to focus on improving through meditation. At least that’s what I think she said. While her lecture was blaring on my car speakers, I had to slam on the brakes, abruptly slowing from 85 to 65 miles per hour, to avoid hitting some jackass who cut in front of me. About a year ago, I moved to a small rural town on the outskirts of Austin, Texas. Along with the relaxing benefits of living in a small town came a daily 45 minute commute into the city for work. Road rage. That’s what I need to work on, Pema.
The term “road rage” seems a little too aggressive to describe my driving. To me, rage denotes purposely smashing into someone’s car, running them off the road, and then getting out and showing them the business end of whatever makeshift weapon can be found. I never did that, however, to say I didn’t think about these things while running my mouth, yelling obscenities at the top of my lungs, and flailing my arms about the cabin of the car, well…
