The Garbage Truck

I read this story very recently. Sometimes we know very clearly what to practice in our life. But we fail to do it due to circumstances. However, we get reminded of them when we read such stories or articles. Here is a very nice story.

How often do we let other people's emotions affect our mood? Do we let a
terrible driver, or a rude comment ruin our day?

The mark of a spiritual aspirant is how quickly we can ‘regain our focus’ on
what is important. One man learnt this experience while he was in a New
York City cab. Here's what happened.

He was traveling in a taxi, on his way to Grand Central Station. All of a
sudden, without warning, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in
front of them. The taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded and missed the
other car's back end by inches.

Then, the driver in the other car, who nearly caused a huge accident,
whipped his head around and started abusing the taxi driver. So did the
companion sitting next to him! One would have thought that it should have
been the other way round!!!

But the taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. The startled passenger
sitting in the taxi said, "Why did you take it so easy? The guys almost
caused your car to crash and send us to hospital!"

The taxi driver laughed and then related what he called, "The Law of The
Garbage Truck."

"Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of rubbish,
filled with frustration, bursting with anger, and packed with
disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it. And
if you let them, they'll dump it on you. When someone wants to dump it all
on you, don't take it personally. You just smile, wave, wish them well, and
move on. You'll be glad you did. I assure you.”

The passenger started thinking how regularly he let garbage trucks run right
over him? And how frequently he took his own garbage and spread it onto
other people, at work, at home, or on the streets? It was that day he
promised to himself, "I'm not going to do it anymore. Enough is enough!"

Over time he learnt how to distinguish when a "Garbage Truck" was coming to
dump all over him. He noticed the junk they were carrying and prepared
himself to avoid it all being unloaded onto him. Like the taxi driver, he
did not make it a personal thing; he just smiled or waved or wished them or
did all of these and moved on!!!

We generally get disturbed on reacting to situations, to people’s opinions that we don’t like. Don’t we? Also we have an aversion to a rude comment, those who tease us, those who underestimate us, those who gossip about us and lot more.
A few years back, I started incorporating “The Law of Garbage truck”. I ensured that I don’t let anyone’s negative thoughts influence me. Generally we forget what to do when we have many more challenging situations and that’s what happened to me. I forgot totally about this law. I was reminded of this law sometime during last year.

I know a person who keeps smiling always. When someone talks rudely, he just doesn’t react. He says it’s our duty to keep our heart as beautiful like a flower and we need to try all possible ways for that.

But our mind is like a coin that has two sides. We can take conscious effort to practice good things. But isn’t it tough to remain the same always? When I do that I get a feeling, am I trying to clone “Mother Theresa”? Also it gives a feeling of being fooled. No……I don’t want to do that. I just want to remain the way I am.
That’s when we forcefully unlearn.

We can practice all good things and we can do it only till the threshold. Once that’s reached, we just can’t bear things and we react. No harm in it. Sometimes we need to let the world know what we are and who we are.

Shouldn’t we?