We are what we pretend to be.

am so angry I could spit." I said aloud, pacing in my living room. I had just hung up with Charlie, a friend of mine. We were working on a project together, and he was supposed to get some of the materials. Apparently he didn't listen to me when I told him what to get and now it was too late. Not only would we miss the deadline for the project, but the money I put out for it up front would be lost. Worse, instead of graciously admitting his mistake, Charlie turned it back on me as if it was all my fault.

The rage was building up inside of me and unconsciously, the pencil I was holding snapped in half in my hand. I looked down at the pencil pieces, then threw them across the room with as much force as I could muster.

“That man showed me no respect,” I said through gritted teeth.

“So what,” came a voice over my phone speaker. I immediately recognized the voice as Sam, my guardian angel. Sam has never actually appeared to me, but he has communicated to me on several occasions and provided me with some insightful guidance now and again, but right now, I really didn’t want to talk to him.

“Sam,” I said, “now’s not a good time. I’m really upset and I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

“Do you want to stay upset?” Sam asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “As a matter of fact, I do. I’m angry and that anger is justified. That man showed me no respect.”

“So what,” Sam quietly asked. He obviously wasn’t leaving, but I didn’t have to like it.

“What do you mean, so what? He should respect me. I can’t let people get away with things like this.”

“Why not?”

“Sam, are you dense? If Charlie, a so-called friend, can get away with walking all over me, than others will do the same. Pretty soon, I’ll be the local door mat. Others will control me, instead of me being in control. ‘So what?’ What kind of question is that?”

“‘So what’ is the best question because it will tell you who is controlling you.”

“You sound like I have multiple personalities,” I chuckled sarcastically.

“In a sense, you do. You are your consciousness, your awareness, but there is more to you than just that. You have a spirit, or a higher self, that provides you a clear path to God. You also have a little self, or ego, that is deathly afraid of that path. It’ s not that your little self is evil or bad any more than a pet is evil or bad, but it is afraid and that fear comes through in daily attacks and rationalizations.”

“A pet?” I asked, thinking of Princess, a small German Shepherd mix I have.

“Yes,” Sam replied. “What happened with Princess just yesterday.”

Princess loves to run free, so I often take her to a local field, away from roads and people, and I recalled taking her there yesterday. A little while after letting her off her leash, she saw a cat and after a chase, cornered it in a clump of bushes. My yells and commands went completely unheeded. When I finally reached them, Princess was about three feet in front of the cat, barking at the top of her lungs, but with the blood dripping from her nose, it was obvious she had already gotten close to the cat once and didn’t want to go any closer.

To hear Princess barking, it sounded like she was well in control of this situation, but I could see she was scared to death. She didn’t know what else to do, except bark at this little cat a quarter her size. I slipped the leash over Princess’ head, and pulled her back to give the cat some room to escape. Princess relaxed somewhat with the leash on, obviously relieved to see this conflict coming to an end, but she continued barking watching the bushes where the cat disappeared.

“Good story” Sam said. “Do you see the connections?”

“Connections? Not really.” I answered.

“Princess saw that cat as a threat, as a conflict, but in reality, if she left it alone, there was no conflict. If Princess was on the leash, guided by you, her higher power, she could have seen the cat, said ‘So What’, and went on. Instead, she was driven only by her instincts and desires, her little self if you will, and saw no alternative other than attack the threat. And once her little self took control, she couldn’t even hear you, her higher self.”

“But the cat wasn’t a threat, at least not at first,” I pointed out to Sam.

“And neither are the majority of perceived conflicts in your daily life.” Sam replied. “Your little self sees them as threats that must be attacked, but if you instead just say ‘So What’ and move on, the threat never materializes. But once you attack, the small problems loom up with the power to harm you, just as the small cat slashed Princess’ nose drawing blood. And when the conflict is over, it will dwell on it refusing to let it go”

“Are you saying that there are no threats worth attacking?”

“Ah, I hear the fear of your little self talking,” Sam replied. “‘If I can’t attack, than what’s my purpose’, it asks. The truth is, the more you live by the values of your higher self, the less worth your little self has and it fears its own death.”

“Sam, you didn’t answer the question. Aren’t there any threats worth attacking.”

I heard Sam take a deep breath. “There are no threats that exist that need to be attacked with anything other than love. I won’t try to fool you into saying that this is easy. It isn’t, at least not at first. You have to ask yourself whether you choose to be controlled by your little self, or guided by your higher self. But remember that just as anger breeds anger, love breeds love. One of your biggest challenges in growing and learning, is to put love into action especially when it is met with anger. Try it.”

Ring. Ring. Sam was gone, and the phone was ringing. It was Charlie calling back to vent his anger.

Sam is right, it isn’t easy to meet anger with love, at least not at first when the little self has the upper hand in control. But we can go a long way in training that little guy by simply asking “So What?” and ignoring the rationalizations.

- Darril R. Gibson