On "road rage", and the latest "sidewalk rage"...

I am a rather impatient person. I don't think it's gotten any better even as I get older. It's just too bad, I guess. I feel like, I have a finite amount of time, and I have a lot of things I need/want to do. If I don't hurry, I'll never get them done or they'll be left unfinished. My friends and family have increasingly often made comments to me, that I'm talking very fast, or walking very fast, or even eating quite fast, and they would ask me "do you need to go somewhere?" or "are you in a hurry?" Interestingly, during those times when I'm prompted, I find that I wasn't in need to go anywhere or do anything. It's simply become a habit of mine. I'm a fast girl.

One thing I have to consciously slow myself is, when I'm driving. I don't want to speed. More importantly, speed driving can kill, and I don't want to kill anyone, myself included. I abide by the rules on the road. But, I can get mad when I'm stuck behind a slow driver; obviously more so when I'm in a real hurry. Usually, when I find that it's a senior driving, I'll shake my head, overtake the car, and move on. Afterall, seniors can't help it; they probably want to drive fast, but driving at that slow speed is probably the best they can manage. That, I understand. But I cannot forgive young drivers who are reckless and/or clueless and/or slow. There is simply no excuse. If they cannot drive by the rules on the road, they have no place driving; in fact, they probably shouldn't even have gotten the driving license in the first place. Whenever I run into one of these, I would mutter some muffled curse (because my kids are still a bit young for that), or at times, honk.

The same goes with walking. But I don't get that kind of rage when slow walkers are in front of you. Afterall, it's much easier to weave yourself and overtake them, than to waste my precious breath cursing them.

But I'm quite sure, should I be put under examination, I might be categorized as some clinical case of road rage. Afterall, Americans seem to have a clinical term for every phenomenon under the sun, or moon, or anywhere in between. I'm particularly bemused by the Wall Street Journal article today on sidewalk rage. Why am I bemused, you would ask. If you read the article, you would quickly notice that every single "diagnosis" or "strategy" noted is simply common sense. What to do with sidewalk rage? Calm down, of course! Yah, right. Those are advices from my kids when I got upset while driving due to some slow, silly driver blocking me. They would ask me, "mommy, calm down; it's alright." And they were only 4 and 5 then. One has to ask then, of how better all these researchers and scientists can do, than to dough out advice that my 4-year-old knows already? I would have to see it to believe it, but if this article shows us anything, it is that all these scientists and doctors are just bidding their time. They would have much better served the society by researching on something much more useful than describing how I feel while walking fast, and to tell me to "take a deep breath."

Or perhaps, the best they have done so far is to con another phrase - sidewalk rage - and get it clinically "proven" in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, then everyone gets funding and reimbursement. But if you were to ask my humble opinion, I'd say, it's a disgrace.