From 2020
Wow, there are some miserable mean people in this world. But sometimes they unintentionally provide a fun bit of entertainment for us. Like what just happened to me.
I don’t know what’s going on but more and more lately, when people behave horribly I just feel amused. I’m starting to see them all as bratty little kids. Sometimes it feels like …. well imagine if you were a beautiful, calm golden retriever and a tiny dog started yapping up at you. Like that.
So here’s what happened. I forgot that I can’t drink coffee after late morning or I’ll be awake until 4:00 a.m. So there I was, writing away and suddenly I remembered that I needed to move my car.
This morning the car slid and swerved out of control straight down my icy driveway. Thankfully there were no cars on the street. (The Universe loves me.) So I parked my car in a cul-de-sac at the end of my street, where there’s a big round space in the middle and plenty of room for plows, trucks and cars to maneuver around. There was space between the houses so I wouldn’t be blocking anyone’s driveway. I planned to go back and get my car this evening after my driveway was plowed. But I forgot.
So I had a little walk down the street in the middle of the night, under the light of the silvery moon. With stars in the velvet sky and the soft snow glittering all around. It was BEAUTIFUL! Air so clean. I felt like I really was FLOATING in joy.
When I reached the cul-de-sac, I vaguely noticed that my car had a lot of snow all around it, considering it had not snowed since I’d parked it there. When I got closer, I saw that there was even snow packed in under the car, all the way up to the body of the car.
I realized that someone had deliberately packed snow all around my tires, as much as they could fit. It was underneath the car in front of my rear tires and behind them. It was packed behind my front tires and in front of them. There was a low wall of snow completely blocking the rear of my car and one blocking the front of my car. Someone had worked hard on that! It was definitely not caused by a plow, because one, it had not snowed since I’d parked it there, and two, it was packed in under both sides of the car.
As I stood there realizing what they’d done and imagining what a mean, miserable, unhappy, ranting, fuming person they’d have to be in order to do that, suddenly I saw a cartoon image of them stomping around and I started laughing.
Luckily, I was wearing my sturdy winter boots and the snow today was a light powdery kind of snow. So I just kicked the snow away from my car. It was fun! I felt like a kid. Who doesn’t like kicking snow?
I got into my car, locked the doors and did NOT turn on the lights (because crazypants mean person might be seething in their house, watching for me), let it warm up for just a minute, and then put the car in gear and let it ease forward practically on idle. It purred away easily.
Imagine that person spending all that time and effort to pack in all that snow. All the while, stewing in such intense negativity. They chose that, instead of choosing to relax and let it go. And why were they angry? The car was NOT blocking anything. They don’t own the street. Were they mildly inconvenienced somehow? Or just mean? Imagine going through life being them.
So anyway, that was my interesting and amusing midnight adventure. I could almost write them a little note thanking them for the laughter.
The Zen thing to do right now is say I feel compassion for all the yappy little mean people in the world. And I do, I do. What a grim existence, to live in a stew of pissy anger. But what I really want to say is how happy I feel tonight. I drove home laughing, and also thinking. In the car my main thought was, “I’m so glad all the angry people are out of my life.” (My exes, toxic family members, even one employer.) And then as I paused in front of the house to breathe clean night air and look up at the stars, I realized something else. I am free from negative people in my life and also…. BIG ALSO… free from negative people in my THOUGHTS and EMOTIONS.
The negativity of the pissy, snow-packing weirdo didn’t infect my thoughts and emotions! In the old days, knowing someone had felt such hostility toward me, would have filled me with angst. But tonight, without being conscious of it, I guess I made a choice to think and feel positive things about what happened. I saw it as a cartoon and laughed at the silly drama of it.
So the starlight epiphany is that it really is possible to choose positive thoughts and emotions, more often than you’d think. More often than I ever realized before. That is TRUE freedom. And that’s why I’m feeling very happy right now.
I just had a thought. What if, every time we encounter petty hostility, we secretly ask ourselves:
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