John and Lisa's Blue Skies Blog – Soaring with God

Driving anywhere, I’m almost always seriously annoyed by all the obstacles I encounter.  My home is within eight miles of nearly anywhere I need to go, so I expect my travels to be simple and easy.  However, as soon as I pull out onto the road, it’s one obstacle after another:  Road construction, detours, flooded roads, trains, school buses picking up children, cars turning left where I can’t get around them, four-way traffic lights that take forever to get back around to my side.

I’m a pretty calm, quiet, meditative-type person, so I always surprise myself when I allow myself to get worked up over these minor obstacles that everyone encounters.  What’s my problem?

Well, I realized these small obstacles are so irritating because they remind me of all the large obstacles in my life keeping me from living the kind of life I’d like to be living.  I do a good job of ignoring the big obstacles since I can’t do much about them (at least not at this point in my life) – but my suppressed anger surfaces in response to “the little things” that come up each day during my short commutes.

I suspect I’m not alone in this.  It’s probably the underlying cause for all forms of “road rage.”  I keep trying to return to my prayer-mantra:  “May the whole world be at peace.”  Myself included.