Winter has fallen over the world. Storms are coming, blanketing the mountains under a layer of snow. This year has more storms. The Cascade Mountains have been covered with snow since October. There has been so much snow the ski slopes are opening early. I am trying to remember when that last happened.

These early snows finally stopped the summer heat. The mountain range, when covered with snow, acts as a huge air conditioner for the Pacific Northwest. Without the snow, our summers bake in unbearable heat. It’s refreshing to finally feel the heavy, cold air flowing over frozen water again. If lucky, we’ll have enough snow to leave a snowpack for summer.  

Everything gets so quiet in winter. The landscape becomes barren, and the wind finds its way more quickly through the trees. The emptiness gives you time to clean out the mental closet.    

I have been thinking about social pressures and how they can encourage defensiveness. That defensiveness emerges in our relationships with others and, ultimately, with the people we love. An article by Sean Illing, The Brutal Mirror, covered his journey into the abyss of self-reflection and caught my attention with one quote:

“Typically, I am one inconvenience removed from rage.”

I realized that quote is so true. I had headed up to Seattle. There are a lot more people there than I’m used to. They walk closer to you and bump into you as they pass by. I was starting to feel overwhelmed by the pressure of so many people and feeling knocked around. When the fourth person knocked into me as they hurried on their hectic way, I felt the anger bubble up.

I could hear my thoughts, “How rude of them. Stop bumping into me. Look where you are going.” The people were bumping into me, and my thoughts made it personal. In a world of chance encounters, things never happen to you or me. They just happen.

I caught my anger and refocused my attention. Instead of making it about me, I let it be what it was – chance encounters that just happen.

In Eastern philosophy, energy is the foundation of life. Your mind creates an energetic barrier around you that attracts and repels different situations. In chemistry, negative and positive ions attract. Similar ions repel. When ions are neutral, there is no movement towards or away from an atom. There is just movement.

I made the effort to change my focus and stopped thinking strangers on a crowded platform bumping into me was about me. That one change in my attitude changed something. I don’t remember another person bumping into me the rest of the day. It was like I had become a neutral ion, and all this vast mass of people suddenly flowed by me like water in the stream.  

What makes us the target of a rage fest? I hear the word “ego” thrown around a lot, like there is some uniform belief in ego. There isn’t. There isn’t one good answer for what makes individuals rage over being inconvenienced.

I think about all the situations that can create inconvenience rage.

How about having to telephone a corporate customer service center? Doesn’t that send chills down your spine. How about driving on the freeway during rush hour? What about someone cutting in line? What about someone parking their grocery cart in the middle of the grocery aisle? How about waiting forever in line to get through the airport? How about not being able to get into your doctor for three months? These are all rage fests because they take so much time.

But there are other things that cause inconvenience rage like things that cause harm. What about someone accidentally spilling something on your new shirt? How about someone being late so you miss whatever you guys were going to do? The deer eating your plants or accidentally backing into a car. Maybe someone ran their grocery cart into you because they were not paying attention.

What about not being heard or being criticized? How about being pushed to do something you don’t want to do?

I look at how busy we are. Our lives are under pressure before interacting with other people. I think about myself and how I schedule my life. I don’t put extra time in for inconvenience. That one inconvenience knocks my whole schedule off, and I spend the rest of the day trying to catch up. Add in one more inconvenience: I’m getting home at 8-9 pm exhausted and still having to do my home things.

But rage festing has far-reaching effects on your personal life. Falling into the simplicity of rage festing leaves you prone to defensiveness. And if you practice defensiveness in your interactions with some rando you’ll never see again; you’re training your behavior to practice defensiveness with those closer to you.

Ah…now I see it.  

This is what winter is about in Eastern philosophy. Winter is the time to reflect on your inner self so that seed you are sowing can become a great tree in Spring.