We Are The Source Of Our Stress

Road rage is a common scene in cities throughout the world. Even in first world country like Australia, you would expect that commuters are more educated and behave in a more civilized way but the contrary happens to be true.

I stopped my car at an intersection waiting for the opportunity to turn left. I saw to my right the oncoming traffic just got there green light and I know that I would have enough time to make the left turn because the oncoming car was still at least 50 feet away. As soon as I made that left turn, the first oncoming car suddenly accelerated his car to make it looked like he almost hit me and made a drastic right turn to overtake me. I could then see from his rear mirror that he was shouting and cursing in his car as to why I made the left turn. He continued his restless driving for as long as I could see him. With all his urgency, he still needed to stop at several traffic lights and he wasn't moving any faster as he wished to. To me, he was creating unnecessary stress for himself over a trivial incident. He could have just let me made my left turn as he was still far away from any major collision. Instead he just wanted to show that no one should intercept his way while he was moving. 

In this fast paced society of ours, people always try to get ahead of everybody else in whatever they do. There is never a sense of community where you look out and care for each other. Everyone is looking solely after themselves. There is no love and compassion in our modern world. You see all the people go about their daily lives without paying attention to what is happening around them. And the convenience and luxury of mobile phones worsen the situation. People are now having a relationship with their iPhone than with real people.

Knowing that stress comes from within ourselves, we should cultivate the habit of watching closely our emotions and keeping them in check constantly. Most illnesses comes from negative emotions that are accumulated within our body. The prerequisite of a healthy body is a healthy mind. 

We can't stop negative emotions from creeping into our mind every now and then. But we can just let them pass without indulging ourselves in them. Whenever a negative thought appear in your mind, look at it as if you are watching birds flying across the big blue sky. Watching them passing by your vision and disappearing out of sight. Gradually you will be able have a much better control of those negative thoughts and experience peace in your mind. 

Once you have mastered the control of your negative emotions, you can start to feed your mind with healthier and positive thoughts. But you must never reject those negative thoughts in the first place because they are part of you. Just accepting that they are there without passing any judgement and you would feel more comfortable with all the bad things that you experience in life.

Don't blame others for your stress because nobody has control over your mind and body other than yourself.