Anger or tolerance

Many times during our lives we are faced with situations where we can become angry and stressed or we can face the situation head-on in a positive way. These are two options that we are all faced with almost daily in our normal routines. Someone drives out of a side street without due consideration; the person in front of you let go of the door right in your face; you get home and there is no milk for your tea – the list is endless!

When there is a mishap in your life, you have a choice – You can gets angry, go wild and reacts with force and negativity or one you can calm yourself down and no react to the mishap. You can choose to deal with the incident in a positive non-reactive and positive way by saying “accidents will happen! Now let see how we can fix this.”

Gurbani tells us to keep away from anger, greed, ego, lust and deep attachment together called the five evils. Regarding anger and lust (or excessive desire), the Guru has warned us very frequently in the holy granth. The famous line from Guru Granth Sahib -

Short story

It is a story of a small happy family living in a city where life is really hectic. The family has a little girl and her parents.

Now to understand how we can choose the way we live, we have to imagine two different scenarios. The beginning of the scene is that of a breakfast table where the father is in a hurry to rush to the office and he also has to drop his daughter to school. He is late for work and so he is rushing things so that he can get to the office in time. A common scene in most cities of the world!

Now what happens in his hurry, the coffee mug lying on the table falls on his shirt because the little girl was in the way. Now he has a choice of how he deals with this situation. Lets consider the options of the way in which he can react to this mishap.

Scenario 1

The most common option is that the father shouts at the girl badly and scolds her mother also that you don’t know where to keep the cup …etc.etc. he rushes to change his shirt. Now as he is even more late; highly stressed; very angry so he doesn’t say goodbye to his wife and he literally throws his daughter into the car. He drives wildly and drop his daughter at the school without a hug or kiss. He goes to the office and creates tension there also with the staff.

His whole day is ruined; he comes back home and his wife and daughter don’t talk to him and he goes to sleep with a lot of worries, stress and tensions which were created by him because he chose to ruin his day and in so doing increased the distance between him and his family.

Result - His whole day and night was ruined, caused by one moment of ANGER.

Scenario 2

Now in this scene, the father has managed to control his anger i.e. he has rectified his mistake. He stays calm and controlled. He politely ask his daughter to be careful next time and goes quickly to change his shirt. Then he says goodbye to his wife and drops his daughter to the school with a hug and kiss. He gets to the office completely forgetting the incident at home and has a good day at work. When he comes back home he is welcomed with a kiss from his daughter and wife.

Result - His whole day and night was filled with love and peace, just because he remained calm and tolerant.

Hope this can help to change your attitude and destiny....Waheguru