A Lesson Finally Learned

It was raining lightly as I was walking home from work last night around 9:45. I had my umbrella open although I probably didn't need it and I had stepped off the curb and was crossing Comox Street when I was scared badly by a car turning left off Bute.

The crosswalk was brightly lit and there is no way the driver could not have seen me unless he was not paying attention to the road. He had not signaled nor begun his turn until after I was in the intersection.

I was shaken and stumbled in front of the car as it braked only inches from me, although I was already on the far side of the road. There seemed to be no attempt to stay in the right lane and avoid me.

I stood facing the windshield and held my hands palms up in dismay as if to signal “What the hell are you thinking?”

He rolled down his window and stuck his head out and I spilled my emotions; “You scared the fucking shit out of me!”

He was a grey-haired man wearing glasses and with a companion and he replied calmly “I know I did” and in the moment and because there was no sign or sense of apology it seemed he intended to scare me.

There was an awkward pause during which numerous sarcastic or nasty things to say came to my mind and he then said, “It’s a good thing no one was hurt.”

In retrospect, I think he too was worried what I might say or do next. He may have even been afraid to apologize giving me the sense that he was in the wrong and thus the opportunity to do or say something hurtful.

A lot of things went through my mind all at once and I came up empty handed. What use would it be to accuse him or hurl abuse his way? In the same angry and scared tones I used at first I exclaimed, “Yes it sure is a good thing!”

I walked away fuming, far from calm and furious that I had received not so much as a single word of apology and I continued to chew on that all the way home.

In an hour the anger had passed and I was glad that I had not piled any more negative energy into an already heated situation.

This morning I remembered a lesson I had learned in my twenties while studying meditation and spirituality. It was the admonition, “Let the anger die in you. Do not release it back into the situation.”

Easier said than done, but I realize today that is exactly what I did.

It only took about 40 years for that lesson to sink home.