Sometimes the aggressive driver is just an a**hole

Quit Trying to Pretend We're All so Spiritual

Whenever the topic of road rage comes up, I always hear a version of the cliched reply: “Have compassion. The person tailgating you might be in a hurry to see their dying family member.” Of course that is possible, but after driving in several states most of my life, my empirical research strongly suggests that sometimes, in fact most of the time, that driver really is just being an a**hole.

In no way will I interfere with someone’s spiritual practice of imagining the road raged driver as personally troubled. On one level that must be true. Human beings carry primal wounds, and for someone to act out of anger means that they are in deep pain. If that practice of compassion insures a loving response, I’m all for it.

The problem I find with this mindset, however, is that it puts pressure on me to force a most likely fictional narrative on a real-life situation.