A "Road Rage" Lunch

I jumped in my truck for my all to usual trip to Taco Bell

for my consistent lunch of:

2 bean burritos with green sauce,

and then proceeded to drive toward church for adoration.

While driving I turned on my blinker and merged into the right lane, not seeing the small car behind me, I cut him off and he honked his horn; we avoided each other easily.

However, there wasn't just an initial honk.

He honked again, and again, and again.

Gave me an extended double finger flip off, and continued to yell

!!!##%%!!#

By Gods grace, it didn't upset me (Must Be God's Grace) and we parted our ways.

The encounter began an inner process of pondering the issue of rage and anger.

I began to think about how one can explode in such anger, often overreacting to a situation. How a simple event can trigger such violence and force.

I began to think that often what we are feeling on the inside turns into our actions on the outside.

What we think becomes what we feel......... What we feel becomes our actions.

Those who think negative thoughts begin to feel negative, and feeling negative turns into acting negative.

It is true that we cannot control our thoughts, at least the initial thought. But we do have a lot of control over is what we do with the thoughts:

- Do we dismiss them right away?

- Do we use the negative thought as a catalyst for additional negative thoughts?

- Do we try to think of the opposite or find a positive message in the thought?

It would be easy to dismiss negative thinking, to minimize the effects of a person thinking negative thoughts, stating that it doesn't effect others. But that is not true. The thought is the beginning to an action. All actions have at their source a thought.; conscious or unconscious.

Take a minute and think about your thoughts.....are they mostly positive, or do they contain a lot of judgement, criticism, rationalization, etc.

If they do, think about how that might be affecting your actions, your behaviors.

At least for me, I can see a direct connection.... I think I am going to work on my thoughts...