Glenn has found himself particularly angry over the last few weeks, and this morning on radio, he tried to get to the bottom of his frustrations. He began by telling the story of four friends riding in a car on the freeway.
The story goes like this:
Four friends are riding in the car on the freeway. Just in front of them, there is a car in the left-hand lane. Suddenly it veers into their lane and nearly hits their car. Both cars swerve, screech, and then veer off onto the shoulder.
One the friends wants to get out of the car and “beat the snot” out of the guy in the other car. Another one of the friends is cursing up a storm. The third friend asks if everyone in the car is okay. And the fourth friend decides to get out of the car and make sure the other driver is okay.
Here is a story of four individuals who just experienced the exact same situation but react in four entirely different ways. So what is the moral of the story?
“Here's the truth of this story. The truth of this story and the way this works is guy number one and guy number two aren't really angry or mad at the other driver. Maybe a little bit, but that's not really where their reaction is coming from,” Glenn explained.
“Who are they really mad at? I don't know – their dad, their teacher, a boss who fired them one time. Those are all lies too, but that's who they really think that they're mad at... The driver of the other car gives them the excuse to vent their anger.”
Eleanor Roosevelt famously said: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Glenn took a similar approach when considering the root of his own anger, explaining that it is ultimately a choice.
“Yesterday I was angry. I was really angry, and I couldn't take it anymore. And I wondered why. Because this president cannot make me angry, just like this president or another president could ever make me happy,” Glenn said.
“No one can ever make me happy without my permission. No one can ever make me mad without my permission. I choose. I need to do a better job of owning my stuff, owning my own anger, owning my own happiness because if you don't, somebody else owns it for you.”
Next time you find yourself thinking, Man, that person makes me really angry, really stop and consider the source of your frustration. Are you really angry at that particular individual? Or is it something deeper? To that point, Glenn asked the audience for their prayers.
“And may I suggest that you pray for me because I've got to start choosing more wisely and figure out: Am I angry at me? I tried to figure this out last night. Am I angry at me,” Glenn asked. “Maybe I'm angry at me because I let it happen, because I was stupid for all of these years. Am I angry at me because I've tried everything I can and I can't figure out a way to stop it… Am I angry that I have made mistakes in the last 10 years that have put me in the place to where I'm part of the problem and not part of the solution? Or am I just really pissed off at this Marxist in the White House? That could be [it].”
“I'm not sure [though] because we give [President Obama] far too much power in many ways, but emotionally we give him far too much power. We are angry a lot of the time,” he continued. “And I don't know how Gandhi did it. I don't know how Martin Luther King did it. I don't know how. I don't know how they did it, other than they were right in step with the eternal truths. And boy, man, I'm trying. I'm trying.”