I was in an Uber taxi, discussing the economics of driving for Uber and ideas about how to learn coding with the driver. A car cut in front of ours and forced my driver to slow down.
I switched the topic “… he didn’t have the right of way”. I was purposefully trying not to react negatively and to not get angry. I though I was doing pretty good. But then the driver actually went even further “It doesn’t bother me. If I got bothered by stuff like that I’d come back home exhausted and nervous by the end of the day.”
This driver gave a lesson in being calm and composed that I wouldn’t be able to receive from a Buddhist monk who had been meditating for a month. The driver had figured out that he should not minimize annoyances by others, he must stop getting annoyed himself.
As a side effect, he was able to save his precious sanity and energy by decided not to get annoyed and affected by the actions of others. To simply accept that unfortunate things will happen, and react by staying calm not just externally, but also internally.
We are a lesser version of ourselves when we get annoyed or angry. But we have the power to choose not to be angry and not to be annoyed. Especially when losing our time and money, or facing danger or a hard situation. We just gotta stay chill no matter what.