I remember the feeling I got the first time I did this successfully.

There’s something you’ve got to understand about me.  I don’t like crowds.  I don’t like super busy places.  I get claustrophobic and annoyed real fast.  I especially don’t like busy roads, unless I’m the fastest driver and have a way to move to the front of the pack.

I used to hate other, crazy drivers.  If you cut me off, boy did I have some choice words and hand signals for you!

But, guess what?  You never would’ve seen or heard them.  My emotional outburst and gesturing took place as you blew me by in the dust, leaving me screaming and hollering and convulsing with veins and arteries pumping at their max in my neck and forehead.  How do you like that sucker!

Well, you lucky sucker, never had to experience the wrath toward you I expressed in the confines of my own car.  No, while you may have been well aware of your reckless driving, you didn’t know how much I loathed your existence.  I didn’t get “payback” – instead, I got your leftover dust.

One day it dawned on me that the only person I was hurting was myself, and the other big eyed passengers regretting they had to ride with me.

So I decided to do something different.  Different actions create different results.

If someone were to cut me off in traffic, or blow by me recklessly, or go first at a 4-way stop, when CLEARLY, it was I whom stopped first (even though it may have been 20 ft. in front of my stop sign), I would chose to LET IT GO.  I would chose to make up a story about them, “Wow, they are really in a hurry! I hope they are okay.”  “Man, they might have diarrhea knocking at the back door, let’s move out of their way other friendly drivers!”  “Phew, they need to get where they’re going 30 seconds before me because their late taking their psych meds!”  It started out that way…now I don’t even have to make up a silly story about their behavior, I simply let it go.

Whatever it may be, I chose to LET IT GO.

Guess what’s cool about this.  I haven’t for the past 15 years felt an ounce, that’s right an OUNCE of frustration toward another driver, no matter their craziness level.  Not an OUNCE!  It is liberating, because I was only hurting myself, and truthfully other people riding with me observing my whacked out, ineffective behavior.  I’ve conquered it.

That has spilled over to allow me to have less and less judgement toward others in all other realms of life.  It has helped me realize that a POWER far greater than “what I know” will take care of it.  I am not responsible for labeling others, blaming others and judging others.  I am responsible for my own emotional state and that is all.

You can do it.  Experience the liberation when you can surrender judgment and claim victory over something that has always bothered you in the past.  LET IT GO AND GROW!