Meditating My Way Out Of Anger

How I Went From Shaking With Rage To Calm (While On A Plane)

Last Saturday I flew from Minorca, Spain to Zurich, Switzerland.

Like most of my recent flights, I was traveling with my flute.

My Flute

Little did I know Vueling, the cheap airline I was using, was a stickler for people with long instruments.

My partner, a friend, and I got to the gate for our departure about 20 minutes before the gates closed.

My partner and our friend did not like to wait in line, so we decided to sit near the gate until nearly everyone had boarded.

We approached the gate agents to board and queued up behind the remaining passengers.

One of the gate agents beckoned to me.

She asked me to put my backpack in the carry on measuring station.

The backpack fit no problem, but my flute was sticking way out of the station.

“You have to leave it here or pay €60,” she said.

I asked her if I could have it on my person.

She shook her head no.

I told her I would quickly go to the bathroom, where my intention was to put the flute in my pant-leg.

I turned around and began walking to the restroom.

“We are going to close the gates now,” she said.

It was 1:15 PM. The gates closed at 1:15 PM.

I was out of time.

I stopped walking and turned to face her.

She stuck the credit card machine out at me.

Defeated, I pulled out my credit card and paid.

She ushered me over to another gate attendant who was checking boarding passes.

I could feel my face twitching in a mixture of indignation and shame.

What a foolish way to waste €60.

The ice cold rule enforcement by the gate attendant felt inhuman.

Not unkind.

Just robotic.

The last time I had felt off-put by an airline was many years ago when flying Royal Air Maroc.

The Royal Air Maroc plane had landed at our gate and all of the passengers were waiting in the gate area to board the plane.

For reasons I no longer recall, we had to wait an additional hour in the gate area.

Little side note, no one was allowed to leave the gate area.

You had to use the restroom?

They did not care.

I imagine the Royal Air Maroc groundcrew had rules they needed to enforce.

Blindly enforcing rules with disregard for the consequences for the people in front of them was distasteful.

I swore to never fly Royal Air Maroc again.

I found myself making this same promise as I boarded the Vueling flight.

Of course this time it was truly my fault.

I had not completed proper diligence about whether I would be able to bring a flute onto the plane.

There was no one to blame.

It was my mistake.

Despite being able to acknowledge this reality, my anger was strong.

I sat down in my middle seat, put my items - flute included - into the seatback pocket in front of me, and closed my eyes. I knew I needed to process this anger. It was worming its way through my body. Hurting all of the organs it touched.

I directed my attention to the feeling of my breath going in and out of my nose.

Once my attention was on the breath, I began to repeat my mantra - Hari Om Tat Sat.

The anger continued to pulse strongly, ripping my attention from my mantra to negative thinking about Vueling.

Using a strong exhale to reset my attention, on my inhalation I silently said to myself “Hari Om.” And on my exhale, “Tat Sat.”

This dance of mantra and anger continued for the hour long flight from Minorca to Barcelona, our stopover en route to Zurich.

When we landed, I could smile again.

My partner asked me if I was still angry.

“No,” I said.

The way she looked at me when I said this told me - even if I am no longer feeling anger ripple through my body - there was a wave of anger coming off of me.

However, I felt settled. At least until two hours later during our layover, when we started to chat about what happened.

Through our conversation I realized:

• My anger was never directed at the gate attendant who called me out.

• She was a part of a system, in which she does a job in exchange for something.

• This role she filled required her to execute her tasks regardless of the impact to people on the receiving end.

If she were to not fulfill the role, then she would be replaced by someone else who would bring in money to Vueling.

My anger was at this reality.

Take the most powerful roles in the world - CEOs of megacorporations, presidents.

People in these roles make decisions aligned with the rules and incentives existing within the system they have risen to the top of.

As soon as these leaders fail to meet to the expecatations of the people who grant them their power (investors, board members, citizens), then the leader will be replaced.

What does this mean?

Let’s say I am a CEO leading a public company specialized in deep sea mining for rare minerals for electric vehicle batteries.

I have an internal team of scientists saying we do not understand the risk of our current mining plans.

They say it will take years to estimate the negative impact to the environment.

I also have an internal team of mining experts who predict we would be world leaders across all deep sea mining businesses if we are first movers on a new deep sea mining contract.

To do my job and best represent the interests of my board - who want to know about potential negative environmental impact, but care more about capturing the electric vehicle battery market - I push for the current mining plans to move forward.

I am doing my job. If my company does not move on the mining contract, another company will.

Who does this help?

Who does this hurt?

Each question is open ended and there is no single answer.

Some impacted people will have more representation than others.

Some groups will have no representation at all.