I don’t see the point in getting angry about things that you can’t really change. I mean small things, a traffic jam, somebody being late, for a couple of examples. It seems like such a waste of energy and time; - I don’t know about you guys but when I get angry I feel burnt out afterwards. I feel somewhat weary and in most cases it can take me a long time to wind down. So it makes sense to not get angry over smalls things that will occasionally happen to everybody and that don’t really matter in the long run. This is why you probably won’t see me get riled up waiting in a queue; everybody’s waiting just like you are, they’re probably all wanting to get out of there just as much as you. Or if somebody is late for meeting me; chances are they have a fairly decent excuse and the thing that will bother me the most is if they’re okay.

I’ve seen people go from agitated to riled-up to down right furious just because there’s a small hold up at a supermarket check-out, for example. I’ve seen perfectly sober, sweet old ladies turn into freaking scary socio-paths for many reasons including a split carrier bag; a new cashier is a little slower than the more experienced cashiers; a cashier’s accent not being ‘home-bred’ enough; and my favourite, due to a lack of maths skills on the old woman’s part.

On the road, I see folk of all sorts (men, woman, young, old, blue and white collared) go absolutely bananas over the fact that there’s a slight traffic jam. To be honest it’s both funny and frightening to see them turn red from all the excessive yelling they’re doing inside their cars. It’s funny because usually nobody can hear them, and frightening when you realise that either they know this or they don’t.

Do these people feel like this all the time or are they having a particularly bad day? What do they hope to accomplish by being angry at trivial things? I find that if you can deal with something without getting mad, you’ll probably get better results and eventually it’ll stop annoying you altogether.