My Good Friend

Since moving to Philadelphia, I've discovered a wonderful yoga community a brisk walk away. This morning in class, my favorite teacher introduced a great concept that I wanted to share. She said that most people take things way too personally. When a driver cuts us off on the highway we get extremely angry. When a person that is regularly friendly suddenly is a bit short, we think to ourselves, what did I do? But we can take a different approach by thinking of people that cross us as our "good friend." My good friend was in a hurry and had to change lanes. My good friend just had a bad day. My good friend is just tired and forgot to use her turn signal. Instead of reacting with ego, we exercise compassion because we gladly tolerate inappropriate behavior from the ones we love. Instead of boiling inside with anger, we can choose to see others as our dear friends who may be forgetful, tired, lonely, hungry or afraid.