Yesterday, while ordering food, I had an epiphany. At the risk of sounding uncomfortably pseudo-profound, I’m sharing it now, for my own benefit if not yours, hoping I could come back to this piece in the future when I need a reminder.
The food was late.
I had ordered it 20 minutes ago. I could see from the app I was using that the restaurant had accepted my order. The rider tasked with the delivery had begun to make his way there, that much I knew, because the app had started tracking him. But he wasn’t moving, for a full 20 minutes, and then for 10 more. The tiny motorcycle icon on my screen was stationary.
I had been promised a 30-minute delivery. That clearly wasn’t going to happen. All I could think about for that half hour was cold lasagna.
I called the rider’s number. The phone was switched off. In a frenzy of rage I left him 25 more calls. All of them ended with a nonchalant lady informing me I was getting nowhere.
By then, in my head I was articulating the complaint I was going to write to the delivery company. Another part of my brain was choosing the words I was going to hurl at the rider when he finally arrived.
10 more minutes passed like this. If hangry is really a thing, I was engulfed by it.
Then, almost in an instant, I was calm. I didn’t feel the need to call the rider compulsively any longer. I didn’t care if the food would turn out to be cold. I was not angry.
It was almost as if someone had flipped a switch in my head. It took me a minute to realize that I alone had done it, no one else.
I forgave the rider immediately. For the next few moments I ran through my mind a number of events that might have caused the man to be held back. What if his phone battery was dead? What if the restaurant was causing the delay? What if he had been in an accident? I even worried a little. It was as if I had opened the floodgates of reason.
I chose not to be angry. I chose to let it pass.
Anger is such a useful emotion. For some people, like Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarti, who has famously alluded to anger as the inspiration for his activism, it is the basis of their life’s work. For some there is no better muse for creative urgency than that which arises from being angry at something.
It is in human nature to give in to anger every now and then. It is involuntary. But staying angry, for days on end or more, and at things you have little control over, that is a decision. The problem, even with a justified burst of anger, is that it has all the potential to overflow its banks. The longer you stay angry at something, the more you divorce yourself from logical reasoning, and the more you take offence at trivial things, as if the world revolved around you.
We spend so much time being angry. At the world, at ourselves, at a spouse or a child, at the traffic jams on the road, at politicians. Look at something long enough, and you’ll find a reason to be angry at it. The internet amplifies our anger, and on every corner of it, whether it be on the right or the left, there is a charlatan who profits from it, because anger sells what compassion doesn’t.
We’ve started celebrating the right to be outraged. I have, as many others, arrived at a point where I deem indignation the appropriate response for not being served immediately. If that is not entitlement, I don’t know what is.
My food arrived 1 hour and 20 minutes after I had ordered. The rider, I thought, was expecting rebuke. I could see it in his eyes. There was an apologetic look about him.
I smiled at him as he handed over the parcel. It was warm.
I made a mental note: the next time I find myself getting angry, I will spend all my energy on asking one question, how long do I want to stay angry? And I hope, with enough practice, I will find that switch faster, a little faster than the last time, for my own sake.
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