I tend to think of myself as a generally easy-going guy, but it’s not uncommon to find myself just fuming and raging when I’m behind the wheel of my car.

I don’t like that. There’s no good that can be accomplished by it. In fact, it’s because I was irritated by an annoying driver that I wrecked my previous car, and put Tisha’s well-being in jeopardy. I am not happy about that.

As I caught myself fuming at another idiot driver (said the guy with 5 accidents in his 17 year driving history), I recalled the exercise I’d promised myself I’d do. I’m going to publish it here so that I’m a little more accountable for it.

But first, an exercise I used to do, but alas doesn’t apply to all situations. If someone’s driving like a maniac, zipping in and out of lanes, speeding excessively, riding the shoulder — you know the drill, pretend it’s someone in a medical emergency or a doctor on his way to give rush life-saving surgery. It’s almost certainly not going to be the case, but it might be. I used to do that, in my “Zen-lite”TM ambitions to be a calmer person.

However, that doesn’t work when the idiot driver in question isn’t going fast, but is just being stupid. So I had to come up with a different method to keep myself in the driving zone and not in the anger zone. My first attempt was “pretend you know the other driver”, but that doesn’t work. I know a good number of idiots. Next up was “pretend the other driver is your friend”, but that didn’t work because some people pull some stunts on the road that would make me question my friendship with them. But I think I found the solution.

I pretend the driver in the other care is someone who I want or need to respect me. And it works — as long as I remember it. It stops me from retaliating in some stupid road-rage manner, like cutting them off, or giving them dirty looks, or flipping them off*. Imagine the horror if you did something nasty, and later that day at work you were introduced to your company’s new CEO, only to have him recognize you as the guy screaming obscenities and flipping him off while grabbing your crotch with the other hand earlier that day. It wouldn’t bode well.

So pretend every asshole driver out there is someone on whom your very livelihood depends. It may not restore your faith in humankind, but at the least it prevents you from being an asshole in return.

* This is not something I’m typically prone to doing. I wrote some article for the Daily Probe years ago in response to someone flipping me off because I unexpectedly found myself in a car pool lane when I was not qualified to be there. I felt pretty stupid until that guy flipped me off, at which point I felt it was all worthwhile, as long as I pissed off some dude in a pickup truck who was the type of guy who’d flip someone off. Yeah, I’m a hypocrite. Bite me.