"Forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much."

I conducted a small experiment the other day. Someone pissed me off with their comments. It took me 3 days to get over it. 3 days!

This is definitely something I have to work on. I realize that I'm too sensitive, that I get too easily affected by people's comments, warranted or otherwise. Whenever I hear something I don't like, 3 things may happen. 

One, is that I accept what they are saying because I know it to be true, and even though I don't like what they say I am calm, accepting, perhaps apologetic if the occasion so requires it. This is not a problem.

Two, I get angry because I know the statement to be untrue and my emotional white blood cells go into overdrive, rendering me seething with anger or disproportionately defending myself by way of a counter attack. This is something that I have to work on, but it does not concern me that much because I have actually become more patient over the years. The smallest thing used to send me into the mightiest rage and like a tornado, there was no stopping me until I had my revenge. I hardly do that now (that is to say, I still fly into rages, I still plot and scheme my perceived enemy's downfall, but I hardly ever execute - which I think is a step in the right direction) thanks for the most part to the teachings of Buddha and Confucius and "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves" and forgive all your enemies and all that. But this is not my immediate concern because it rarely happens these days, so for the most part I think I have it under control.

My immediate concern is Situation Three. Which is, when someone says something to me, solicited or otherwise, warranted or otherwise, and I am not sure when it is said whether what is said is true or false. Then this statement remains with me for (according to my experiment) 3 whole days. Most of the time I decide I am right, but it is by then too late to tell the person off or justify myself to the person. Sometimes I decide I am wrong (very, very rarely) but it is too late to do anything about it. And sometimes I decide it doesn't really matter what they have said. Whatever the outcome, I hate that it takes me 3 days to get over it. In those 3 days, I would ponder, eat, sleep, breathe, chew, spit, regurgitate the damn statement before I come to any form of decision.

I know I have to learn to let go. But I have no idea how. Anger is easier to deal with, sometimes I just have to run in the park and it goes away. But Situation Three is much more tricky. I think it is to do with confidence. I should have conviction in my own actions and words. Which means that I should think more carefully about what I say and do before I say and do it, so that when I say and do something and someone tells me I am wrong, I am immediately able to justify what I said and did because I had actually thought about it, and I was convinced that this was the best possible thing to say and do at that particular time. 

It takes a lot of practice I guess. But I have to start somewhere. I really don't fancy taking 3 days to get over a statement, especially if said statement is unwarranted or untrue.