Year Two, Day 87: Praying for a Hateful Man. On a Train

Today is day 6 of my "happiness way":

"The way to happiness:

Keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry.

Live simply, expect little, give much.

Fill your life with love.

Scatter sunshine.

Forget self, think of others.

Do as you would be done by.

Try this for a week and you will be surprised".

~The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale, 1952

I finished reading The Power of Positive Thinking on the train ride home to Portland from Salem yesterday. Usually a one hour trip, yesterday took 3 hours - including an odd moment of about a half mile traveling in reverse! Apparently there was a problem with the Steele Bridge. The Amtrak employees had to change the connecting tracks by hand. Not sure I understood the whole process.

But I was ok with it. The train is very comfortable, and I was immersed in my book.

That is, until the man behind me started spewing profanity. Such hateful words, most of them which I do not want to remember, even less repeat!

He was obviously very put out that we were going to be late. He called the employees horrible names and cursed them. It went on for the whole last hour of our delay.

I was getting rather annoyed. I tried putting my ear buds in. But it did nothing to drown out his hate.

I turned on the radio, but then I could still hear him. And I could not not focus on the last chapter of my book, which is ironically titled "How to Draw Upon that Higher Power"!

So, I did just that. I prayed for the angry, hate spewing man.

And then I moved up a few rows. I smiled at the lady with the alarmed expressed in the seat across the aisle.

And I finished my book.

Like a true student of positivity!

We made it to Portland, by the way. And hateful man walked off without another word.

Happy Thursday!

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