Cultivate Calmness

Just the other day a friend was sharing a story about a family member that always seems angry and never happy, always complaining about something, never content or satisfied.  She shared how exhausting it was for her to deal with this person.  It brought to mind a viral video I had seen recently of a road rage incident where a young woman took a baseball bat out of her car and proceeded to bash in the window of the “offending” vehicle.  Then just today,  a friend and I were exiting a restaurant at lunch and were literally startled by a man yelling profanity into his phone, clearly furious with whomever was on the other end of the line.  We both actually jumped a little because our our backs were to this man and when he yelled it was so loud and forceful it caught us by surprise.  It seems that so many people in our society today are filled with rage.  My friend and I chatted about the pervasiveness of anger and rage in our culture today as continued on our way back to work.  She recalled some advice for people (or ourselves) when they (or we) get worked up about something: ask will this matter in three days?  We chuckled over how this might go over (like a lead balloon?) to someone like the man on the phone who was clearly so angry he was almost in another atmosphere.  Most people in a fit of rage wouldn’t  appreciate that type of questioning during a flare up.  Nonetheless, I’m very interested in what I can do to diffuse anger and to cultivate calmness in the world around me.  I think maybe it starts with kindness and love – because why do we get so angry?  Maybe it’s because we are hurt and when we are hurt there’s really two reactions – get angry or be sad .  For many the go to, gut reaction is anger.  So then, is it possible that if we show more kindness and more love; if we reject chaos, instead of feeding on it and if we cultivate calmness, we can ultimately achieve peace?  What do you think?  I think yes.