Pride.

Quite the interesting morning one experienced. One is on this journey of decluttering the mind and meaning to find peace in one’s daily life experiences. After all, that’s why people choose to live a minimalist lifestyle. The simpler the life you live, the less stress you’ll have. And the less stress you’ll have, the more peaceful your life will be.

I will retell the events of this morning and later explain how they connect with pride. The morning began as usual. However, this morning I woke up earlier than usual and therefore my mind was already operating sooner than usual. I get in the car and began driving out of the apartment where I stay. At the exit of this apartment, is a stop sign. Naturally, one stops and waits for other cars to pass by. I double-check for any cars that I might have missed and I see one from the opposite end. For him, entering the intersection is a yield sign. But I’m thinking that it’s a yield sign and there are no cars. So, I enter the street and this man isn’t stopping. Luckily nothing happened but that annoyed me.

I continued driving along and later on the highway, there were a lot of Primes. Primes are those big trucks that haul containers and stuff. I can see these Primes have occupied three of the four lanes. Mini-Primes (the smaller trucks like the ones from furniture stores) are behind these Primes trying to find a way to squeeze through between them. There was a bit of fog and other drivers around me are driving like mad men too to squeeze between the Primes and Mini-Primes. I see all this unfolding and I know my PacMan does not have the power to squeeze through that sort of traffic quickly and safely. I entered the slow lane and decided to wait it out. Moments later, I saw flashes in my rearview mirror from a Corolla. I am in the slow lane. If you want to move fast, go into the Shesha lane on your right. This Corolla violently overtakes me and gave me that look of “what are you doing”. I gave him the same look.

Already there have been two incidents in less than 30 minutes that have charged my energies. The third one comes at the intersection that leads to work. This intersection is busy and it’s one of those where people decide to use lanes outside their intended purpose. But because I’m already emotionally charged, my mind is oblivious to what’s happening around me. I can see that the robots are red but then I hear someone’s hooter barking at me. I look up and I didn’t realise that the green arrow that I allowed our lane to move was blinking. But because of that hooter, I deliberately crawled into the intersection until the traffic opened for everyone to block those behind me in the lane I was in.

The last incident happened as I got to work. Before getting to campus, there is a roundabout. At this point, I was properly annoyed. So, I entered this roundabout faster than I should have. There were no cars in the roundabout. I had right of way because I was in the roundabout. Because I entered this roundabout like a formula driver turning at the apex of the turn, the driver on my left mistaken my turn signal so to indicate I was taking the second exit and not the third exit. This guy then decided to roll his window door and yell at me. At that point, I was so emotionally charged with kleshas (disruptive emotions), if I was not on campus with fellow colleagues arriving to work as well, I was going to tail that man to ask him to say what he was saying to my face. At that point, my knuckles were burning to knock someone’s teeth in.

But anyway, he drove off and I entered campus. So, I’m a man who believes that you reap what you sow and that everything that happens to you is a reflection of your own actions. I mean you can find people in the greatest of poverty but still be the happiest people in the world. I got into my office and decided before I start the day, I must just sit and meditate. It’s a bit awkward to do that in my office because the design is that it is fully transparent, which it should be given the industry I am in. But no way could I begin the day with such a potent charge of violent energy.

I sat down on the carpet, faced the wall and followed my breaths. In doing so, I broke down each incident. The first one, I was the one in the wrong. The man coming had the right of way and I had to wait for him before entering the street. However, my pride and impatience made me enter sooner.

In the second incident, I was also in the wrong. Even though I was in the slow lane, if memory recalls correctly, the minimum driving speed on the highway is 80km/h. The fact that I was driving at 60km/h, I should have turned my hazard lights on to indicate that there was an anomaly on the road and drivers should be aware. My ignorance and selfishness made me feel insulted by the man’s flash when he had the right to do so.

In the third incident, my mind was not aware of what was happening around me. And therefore, I deliberately choose to attack whoever hooted me by stealing their time. There was no reason for me to crawl into the intersection. There was no reason to stop still looking like an idiot in the middle of the intersection. The man or woman who blasted their hooter brought my attention that it was our turn to go. I could have chosen an emotion of appreciation and gratitude to have been made aware of the situation but, my ego and pride got the better of me and choose a further more disruptive emotion.

And lastly, the man who rolled down his window. The way I entered that roundabout, he too had the right to project his frustrations. I entered the roundabout relentlessly and carelessly. He decided, correctly, to wait until I got out of the roundabout to ensure everyone was safe in that situation.

The interesting thing is that with each incident, my pride would not allow me to see my fault. It would not allow me to acknowledge that perhaps I was in the wrong. It is only when I sat down and followed my breaths and followed my thoughts that I saw in each situation I was the one in the wrong.

Yes, not everything in life can be attributed to your own doing. Not being able to get a job when you are qualified could be an external circumstance outside your control. It is the Lutheran serenity prayer that teaches Christians to ask God for serenity for the things that they cannot change, the courage to change that they can and the wisdom to know the difference.

The key to that prayer is understanding the wisdom to know the difference. In all these incidents, if one did not sit and analyse them, I would still be charged with violent emotions. My pride would tell me that those drivers are idiots who probably bought their licenses in the first place. However, understanding that most of the things in life that we get are the direct consequences of the things we give, the emotions that I got through those incidents reflected the emotions that I gave in each.

And in each incident, the main emotion that I gave was pride. Pride is an emotion that most of us believe we should possess. We should take pride in our profession and in our work. We should take pride in our friendships and relationships. We should take pride in our cars and other material objects that we own. This pride will make us cherish and respect these entities that define who we are.

But too much pride can be the death of you. This might not be a literal death but it could be an emotional and mental one. Taking root of these events, if I let my pride take over and feel that I was not in the wrong, my pride would have maintained that charged violent energy. I mean after that fourth incident; I was ready to throw down. It could happen that at work someone decides to rub me the wrong way. Within my pridefully charged emotional state, that person would receive a violent attack which could have been verbal or even physical. And in that attack, it would have created an enemy or an unfavourable situation that I would not have needed in the first place.

In the decluttering of the mind, it is wisdom that we need to eject those emotional and mental states that we don’t need and keep those that we need. Like Teacher Pearl who chooses peace, love and hope, she actively pursues these emotions. In doing so, she’s able to keep smiling even when faced with tough situations. Luckily, the state of our minds and hearts are things that we have control over. Even those getting professional assistance to fight their mental and emotional challenges, they have the power within them to make the change they desperately need.

This morning was a lesson on that. That your peace, ultimately is in your hands.