Today I was driving and I missed a light because the person in front of me was too slow to follow traffic speed. I yelled a profanity or two as I watched the yellow light turn red and the car before me finally crossed the line into the intersection. 6-7 minutes later, and one light from my turn-off the car in front of me was driving the speed of molasses on a cold day, and while cars in the left lane sped through the light, I was left yelling profanities yet again, while me and the slow poke in front of me slowed and stopped in our lane… while the light hadn’t quite switched to red from yellow yet.
It took this second over-the-top-loud-yelling-in-a-car-just-to-myself swearing of profanities to make me realize that I wasn’t that upset at the other drivers. No, I have been suffering back pain for two solid weeks and this is what was really getting to me.
It wasn’t bad driving, it was a bad back. Neither traffic event warranted my overreaction. Both were minor inconveniences rather than major affronts to common sense or to me personally.
It makes me wonder:
How often do we discount how much our mood can affect our reaction to events?
In this case I made a proverbial mountain out of a couple mole hills. And recognizing where the blame lay allowed me to rebalance myself so that I didn’t continue doing this for the rest of the day.
