Rude behavior? walking for

It’s inevitable: If you interact with other human beings, you’ll be subject to a variety of put downs, glares, and smirks (if not downright rude gestures). Whether their behavior is intentional or not, the driver who cuts you off, the person in front of you in the “15 items only” line with 25 items in their cart, the salesperson who refuses to make eye contact while he texts on his phone–they’re all annoying.

Sure enough, you smoke, you have a conversation with yourself about how rude these people are; how would you ever behave like that. He is justifiably irritated and stays that way for most of the day. Then you inflict your bad mood on whoever you meet: your coworker, child, partner, friend. Suddenly you’re all thumbs, you drop things, you can’t find what you’re looking for, and your back is bad again.

Like attracts like. No big surprises. Like attracts like, energetically speaking, and when you’re in a rotten place, you stop perceiving the goodness around you and in you. You can only relate to things that match in some way, your bad mood.

The solution is not to pretend you weren’t put down or belittled, but that you did. The solution is to recognize the behavior as something you don’t want in your life and refuse to become attached to it. In shorts, do not cling. Don’t hold on to the person’s rudeness like it’s a lifeline and hold onto it with all you’re worth. Let’s go. Immediately, totally, completely. They were tough, yes. You don’t like it, fine. C’est fini.

You see, it’s not the snub or cut in the front that hurts you, not really. You may need to spend 5 more minutes in line than you intended, and you may need to remember to pay more attention to potentially irresponsible drivers, but there’s no real harm here.

You are irritated, upset, but not damaged beyond repair. Unless you do so.

The more you rage, dwell on the slight, endlessly replay it in the theater of your mind, the bigger it gets, and yes, then you can hurt yourself over this truly insignificant event.

You have better things to do with your life; your time on this glorious planet. If you can, forgive the person (who knows what’s going on in their life?). If you can’t, that’s fine too, but at least let go and keep walking. You will be happier for it.