Pet Peeves

I was cleaning the store room and chanced upon my high school autograph: a drawing book filled with horoscope figures and the standard autograph questions: Name, address, nickname, Define love, Pet peeves… 

Nearly a quarter of a century ago, when my friends and I filled up these pages, my major complications in life merely involved not knowing how to get my parents permission to attend an overnight party in a friend’s house. As I went through the faded entries, I realized how it easy it had been for us to pour our hearts out into the printed pages.  It was a time when we took pride in our openness. I smiled at the unembarrassed way with which we admitted our secret yearnings, as we named our crushes in between bouts of giggles, and the episodes of disappointments and misunderstandings that threatened to break our friendships.

It is an openness that slowly disappeared as we became adults. 

As adults, we became guarded and secretive.  The same peer pressure that once made us spill our secrets now required us to rein in our impulses to follow conventions.  We teach ourselves to adhere to the accepted norms of right and wrong. Out of fear of being singled out, we sometimes deny our basic truths and bury it inside us.  We turn our backs to the little voice that would have told us who we are. And in the process, we become strangers even to ourselves.

But our dark little secrets remain.  And ferment.  And as happens when something ferments, the formed bubbles create pressure, seeking relief.  And because we have lost contact with our true selves, we go about our daily lives unaware of the trapped bubbles within.

And what, we may ask, threatens the bubbles to erupt?  Pet peeves…

When we come across other people who, unlike us, acted to fulfill their desires, we find our means of relief.  Unconsciously, we see in their actions a reflection of our own hidden desires.  In them we see our hunger take form.  And since we are dealing with other people, we find it easy to get angry.  We criticize them for their deeds, and we believe ourselves when we say that we are angry for the sake of the injured party.  Yet sometimes, we may find that our anger is directed towards ourselves. 

When we point an accusing finger towards another person, our four other fingers point at us. As a child, I didn’t understand the significance of such statement.  As an adult, I can see how our accusations reveal things about us that we would have rather kept hidden. 

There are many different kinds of anger.  There is a kind of anger that is pure.  A white hot energy that seeks to correct a mistake and that can easily forgive.  And there is the anger that rises without so much provocation. 

When we pause for a while to consider the cause of our anger, we allow ourselves to receive a precious spiritual gift.  I can understand why we are told to count from one to ten before we act out our anger.  By counting, we allow enough space for our anger to dissipate.  Of course, this is easier said than done.

I have realized that one valuable insight that we can get from other people is their response when we ask them what makes them angry. For hidden in their answers is a basic truth that struggles to be free.  Our anger is so much part of us.  by listening to our anger, we listen to ourselves.