Sometimes I can be a very emotional person, and as such I have always argued that emotions are good for us, that they remind us that we are alive, and that we can learn things from our emotions.
And while I still think this is true, I have also come to learn that emotions can also hurt us.
Life requires balance... And when we become overly emotional about the small things, when we take things to the extreme we are thrown off balance and we lose our sense of clarity.
Emotions are positive when they connect us with the people around us, or when they help express our character and our light with the people we love. But some emotions like anger, jealously, grief, or guilt can be incredibly debilitating and make us those sight of that which is good within ourselves and the world around us. We can become so consumed by these emotions that we lose sight of the bigger picture. Anger one of the emotions that I find hurts us all the most. We become angry and frustrated over the smallest things....a miss communication, traffic, the weather, someone else's tone that we think is negative, a last minute assignment on our day off...the list could really go on forever. There are so many little things in life that make us frustrated and that spurn the ugly head of anger.
Today I was suppose to get a ride to Navsarjan's office in the city. I had things I wanted to finish there, some people I was going to meet with, and the driver I hired to pick up my Mom and Aunt from the airport who are flying in tonight was going to grab me from the office so he wouldn't have to drive all the way out to DSK. Before I was scheduled to leave for the city Sushma and I went around to take some more footage of the pollution problem I am working on. When I got back I rushed to get everything ready to go. The driver ended up not having to leave as soon as we had thought, so I went back to my room to finish a few things. Well, the driver ended up leaving without me because the secretary who I had told to call me when it was time to go never called me. Needless to say I became incredibly frustrated. Sushma and I had reminded him four times to call me when it was time to go. When I asked him why he had not called me, he became defensive and fired back telling me it was not his responsibility and that he had to much work to do for the Director. This only made me more angry. I sat in the office venting to Sushma for a good twenty minutes. All the plans I had made that for the day had been ruined. I had rushed around all morning for no reason. And now the driver had to drive another hour and half just to come grab me. It was a huge inconvenience.
But as I sat in my office getting more frustrated by the second I began to realize my anger was not helping anything. I was only hurting myself more by brooding over the inconvenience that had been caused me. In the long run I could reschedule the meetings I had, and finish the work later, and I still had a ride to meet my family. I was wasting my day getting mad over something that was incredibly trivial in the long run. My anger wasn't going to change what happened, and it certainly wasn't making me feel better. All my anger was doing was ruining my day. So I decided to let it go and think about the wonderful days I have scheduled ahead, and it worked. I salvaged my day and finished a wonderful book.
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else: you are the one who gets burned."
-Buddha
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