Eric Auton
Do I sometimes wish I was driving James Bond’s Aston Martin? I mean the classic, grey model with all the gadgets designed to wipe out the… other driver …
Imagine how satisfying it would be to flick open the console and pause just long enough to choose between the toggles for the rockets, or the machine guns or the thin film of oil to be layered on the road surface behind us?
“You selfish toad you are going to get what you deserve!”
Us? Yes, us: all of us because all of us have probably felt a huge desire to take revenge upon a fellow road abuser who has just behaved in what is unquestionably a highly self-centred way.
Revenge in a fit of road rage? Why not? After all, we are all safely in our personal cocoons of our vehicles, centrally locked on our platforms secured by safety glass so we can be seen and heard, if we so wish.
Yeah, let’s let it out! Scream like a Formula 1 driver who has just won another zillion dollars. Shake your fist or just one of your fingers! Revenge is the best medicine. (Let’s not get Shakesperean who thought aloud that revenge was a dish best served cold. Now that is pure relish).
In spite of our modern culture, there is another way – a better way. Would you like to try it?
The next time that that billionaire, celebrity around whom the whole universe revolves is at the wheel of his Jaguar and his/her behaviour causes you to wish you were in Bond’s Aston Martin, try thinking and saying aloud
“I forgive you.”
Excuse me?
Whether that driver deserves forgiveness, is another question. However, several reactions follow your action of forgiveness:
- Your breathing is given a chance to modify on the way back to normal.
- you are concentrating on your actions and your attitudes.
- you close the door on a stronghold which our enemies have been waiting for us to open and that stronghold has a name: hate.
- revenge is the vinegar which rots our soul, so please God by being forgiving so He can forgive us for our bad choices.
