Day 1 Observation: Driving To Work Impatiently

My Affective Domain (-A): It's been a long day at school. I feel tired and cranky.

My Cognitive Domain (-C): I'm thinking how badly I want my Reese's peanut butter cup and Diet Coke before work and I only have 15 minutes to get there. I want TIME to eat my Reese's and now I'm stuck behind a donkey's ass. I'll tell you, Impatience is my first name right now. Here I am cruising on my ped, making good time and all of a sudden this dumbdumb just floats into my lane. Does this donkey think he's at Disneyland riding in a "Its a Small World" boat? Put a little pressure on that ferry peddl e before I explode! Look at him cruise! Oh my goodness gracious, he is stopping at a yellow light. I'm going to die. No. It's okay. I am going to be okay. I will switch lanes and overtake him when the light turns green. Wow! I can't overtake him! All the lanes are going to fast and I'm not about to cut those speedsters off. I have only two more lights to go and then I can turn left. Oh Yeah.... he is turning left with me. Yep. He is stopping at another yellow light. This just is NOT going to happen again. Move your donkey ass over, I'm coming through.

My Sensorimotor Domain (-S): I squeezed between Donkey's car and the curb, looked at him through the window, gave him the finger, told him to go back to Disneyland and took off.

Day 2 Attempt: Overcoming Impatience While Driving in Traffic

My Affective Domain (-A): It's been a long day at school. I'm feeling tired and cranky and I want to go home.

My Cognitive Domain (+C): Wow, there is some serious traffic today. This sucks. Wait! I can't think like this. This is the way it is, there is nothing I can do about it. Just be patient. Hmm. Hmm.....I could squeeze by everybody and drive along the curb. No, I'll be patient and wait my turn. The light has turned green three times and I have moved three feet. When I settle down I'm going to live somewhere where there is no such thing as traffic. Yes. Pure freedom. Okay. Think peace, think patie nce, separate from the external environment. I am the only one who will choose how I will feel.

My Sensorimotor Domain (+S): I waited patiently until it was my turn to go. I did not drive along the curb.

In my mini-self-witnessing experiment I identified my impatient behavior and attempted to overcome it. On both days, I was tired and cranky (-A). However, my day one thinking patterns differed from my day two thinking patterns which resulted in entirely different outcomes. In day one, my inner thoughts were mentally polluting (-C). That is, I was allowing myself to reinforce the antagonistic situation by irrational thoughts and inner chatter. This animated my impatience and caused me to act erratical ly (-A = -C = -S). In day two, I had aroused impatience, but I attempted to control my inner thoughts by separating myself from the actual situation which brought about feelings of peace (+A) and caused me to think in a positive manner (+C). Through inn er tranquility (+A), I controlled unnecessary polluting thoughts (+C) and I reacted in an ethical manner (+A = +C = +S).