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Anger

May 13, 2017

He used to be a short-tempered person, always easily getting angry. Then, he suffered from a stroke, and had a surgery. He recovered from it. But after, his doctor told him that if he got very angry again, the next time, he would die.   His doctor taught him the way of Yoga breathing to calm down. He also gave him a book, which was a selection of famous people's wise remarks. After the surgery, he never got angry. He liked the book that his doctor gave him. He especially liked Mother Teresa's words. When he met something unreasonable he remembered some her words, 'People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you're kind, people may accuse you of hidden motives. Be kind anyway. ...', 'If you judge people, you have no time to love them.' He also tried to keep it in mind, 'Peace begins with a smile.' Once he began to live peacefully, he thought why he was so irritated all the time before. He got angry when his food was late at a restaurant. One time in a coffee shop he said to the waitress, "In this shop, workers chat louder than customers." He also told the receptionist of a hospital, "Why do you need to call out the patients' disease name aloud. Don't you think the patient might feel humiliated?" He thought that there were so many non-logical, absurd, irrational things and people in this society. Before, it seemed natural for him to get angry. But, once he gave up getting angry in order to survive, he thought that it might be his misunderstanding, people have their own reason to do something. He should be kinder to people. Maybe people are too busy in this competitive society to think about others. He enjoyed his calm life until one day. On this day, he was in line at a popular ramen shop. In front of him there was an old woman who seemed to be around his mother's age. Suddenly a guy with a magazine in his hand came and slipped in in front of the old lady. The guy looked like a cheap gangster, so nobody didn't say anything. He breathed deeply and thought that this guy's mother might have been very busy and had not raised him property. Suddenly the gangster looking guy burst out laughing from something that he read in his magazine and stepped backwards and bumped into the poor old woman. She was about to fall down but he was able to catch her. The gangster didn't apologize. He said to the gangster calmly, "Didn't you realize that you hit this lady?"  The guy raised his face from his magazine and glared at him, "What?" He repeated it, but the guy said nothing and returned to reading his magazine. The old woman said to him that she was OK and she didn't need an apology. He nodded. After a while, the guy spat on the ground, but the wind caught it, and it landed on the poor woman's dress. He went in front of the gangster and took his magazine away. The guy was furious, "What is this?"  He said, "You spat on her dress."  The gangster replied, "I just spat on the ground." He said, "No, you didn't! Apologize to her!"  The gangster retorted, "Give me back my magazine." He didn't. The guy spat on him and said, "This is not an accident!" He heard something in his brain break. He regretted becoming angry but what is done, is done. In this case, he had a little time before his death. He hit the guy on his face. The gangster fought back and soon it became a big brawl. The gangster was a skillful fighter, so he got hit pretty badly. But, the fight between the two guys didn't last long because several other people jumped into the fight and started to hit the gangster. Finally, the gangster cried out and escaped. There was a big applause. He was listening to the applause while lying on the ground. He was thinking that it was not so bad to die being surrounded by these good people. But he didn't die. Soon he recovered from the gangster's hits. Sometime afterwards he stopped by his doctor's clinic. The doctor said, "I'm sorry, I just exaggerated. Getting mad many times is not good for your brain, but sometimes it's acceptable. By the way I like Mother Teresa's phrase, 'God doesn't require us to succeed; He only requires that you try.' Maybe if you intend not to get angry easily, it's enough. If you are completely free from anger, you will be like a robot." The guy said, "This time, I know that there are many people who don't say anything, but support something that they believe in. Mother Teresa said, 'Do not wait for a leader; do it alone, person to person.'" They smiled.

*wise :賢い
*stroke :脳出血
*absurd :ばかげた
*brawl :けんか
*exaggerate :誇張する