Hey, I’m Addison. You’re reading Bigger Than Me, a newsletter about mastering the skill of compassion. Sign up or scroll to the good stuff.
Photo by Nicolai Berntsen on Unsplash
I was an impatient driver fighting road rage.
If I was in a bad mood and a car cut me off, it would trigger my frustration.
A few more instances of people making blind turns and driving far below the speed limit and that frustration would turn to anger.
I'd fume at people in cars who didn't know who I was, couldn't hear a word I was saying, and most likely were oblivious to the situation.
Even for the people who were being purposefully rude, all my honking and aggressive driving didn't change the fact that afterward, they would move on with their day and I'd be the one left stewing.
It made no sense.
Why was I falling into the same trap as so many others and raging when it solved nothing?
I, like many, felt cheated.
At any moment in our lives, we are subconsciously weighing everything against our expectations.
We make tiny calculations thousands of times a day and they play a huge role in every relationship, from immediate family to strangers.
Here's what I mean.
Imagine you are talking with a co-worker. The conversation begins upbeat, but ten minutes in, your focus lags and energy dips. You attempt to fight the boredom out of respect for your colleague, but eventually, you give in. Your options then become either tuning out or looking for an exit.
Your subconscious decided for you.
The precise moment our brains decide the input of the conversation isn't worth the price we are paying, it releases chemicals to direct our behavior away from the situation.
In this way, our brains actively try to protect our most precious resource, time, without us even realizing it.
The problem lies in the fact that our minds don't understand immediate gratification isn't the answer.
This effect is at play while driving.
Road rage is a response to theft.
I knew on a fundamental level that I couldn't get my stolen time back, so all of the direct negative effects (taking longer to get somewhere) combined with the potential consequences (reputation loss for being late, a car accident, etc.) formed a surge of pent up emotion in me, ready to explode.
Without a good solution, I was picking the closest culprit to blame for it all.
What I wanted was relief from the pressure.
What I needed was an escape from the cycle.
My eventual escape came in the form of one thing:
I learned to think like a billionaire.
Bill Gates doesn't sweat a $100 fine.
Looking back on all the times when I was angry while driving, I realized every one of those situations was a “$100” debt.
It looked like this:
An average person lives to 78 years old, which is roughly 41 million minutes.
A road rage-triggering incident would last anywhere from 10 seconds to 3 minutes at most.
If every single incident lasted 3 minutes, that's still only 0.00000007% of my life.
In contrast, Bill Gates is worth $132.5 billion as of writing.
A $100 ticket is only 0.0000000007% of his net worth.
It's the same thing.
If I lived a normal lifespan, I would never have an excuse to place that small of an inconvenience over any relationship.
Far less so since I believe in eternal life.
Ultimately, having been given and forgiven so much, I can gladly let go of anger and forgive the next person who cuts me off in traffic
After all, it's the least I can do.
"And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others."
Until next time,
Addison
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