This applies every freaking day!!! When you are in a stressful situation, when you are faced with something that angers you, when you have an important decision to make, you will perform better if you CALM DOWN!! (the irony of writing "calm down" in all caps does not escape me). Use knowledge, forethought, and self-awareness to "prick the film" and prevent yourself from exploding. As a friend recently said, when I explained my new motto: "keep your ricotta to yourself". That works. When you let your inner lasagna explode, that ricotta ends up effecting a lot of other people, and having further reaching effects than you expected.
You are more likely to do something to the "right of bang" when you are anxious. You'll take things personally (which is almost always bad, no matter if it's intended as personal or not), you'll miss important pieces of information that are vital to the decision-making process, you'll forgot HOW to make good decisions, you'll forget what your overall goal is. When you take a moment, during your approach, to remember to stay calm, you'll see more of the relevant factors. When you feel yourself getting worked-up, and take a second to breathe (pricking the film on top to vent pressure), you're going to be more observant and make better decisions.
How does this apply to today? Well, lets see:
Whatdaya know, there's some lasagna right there. People are using national-level politics as an excuse to engage in childish behavior. "Let's burn something!!!" is such a constructive way of getting your feelings heard!
Actually, it seems it's a good way of getting flash-bangs thrown at you, and fire extinguisher-sized cans of pepper spray discharged in your face.
I think there are many factors in play here. One of the largest is the U.S. having become the "decadent capitalists" the now-defunct U.S.S.R. said we would. We, as a collective entity, have no truly existential threats. We aren't required to work at ANYTHING in order to survive (and many people believe that we shouldn't HAVE to work in order to survive. I disagree, but that's another matter). We've become a society of children. Very deliberately! "Let kids be kids" and "I may grow old, but I'll never grow up" define the western world. Society encourages us to remain childish (not child-like, there's a difference) forever. Self-restraint is actively discouraged. "Go with your heart", and similar adages, encourage spontaneous actions based simply on the emotions that you're feeling right now. Don't take a moment to think about long-term consequences, that's for old people who can't be trusted. They follow obsolete traditions that need to be overthrown. "Down with the dominant paradigm" cries the protester. Buddhist "live in the now" has been mis/re-interpreted as "Live FOR the now". Being an adult is now a horrible shame.
And so we get a society of lasagna. "If you're not angry, you're not paying attention" was the '60s and '70s chant. I'm going to counter that "If you're angry, you CAN'T pay attention". You've lost perspective in your quest for an emotional high. It feels so good to engage in violence on behalf of a cause, doesn't it? Yah, let's smash the windows and loot that little store your grandparents own. Get the adrenaline flowing in righteous indignation.
We are voting for politicians who are "passionate". We encourage everyone to have an opinion on EVERYTHING, and criticize them for not knowing the subject we're in favor of. If someone says "let me get back to you. I need to research that first", we belittle them. "Just go with your heart! What does your heart say?". Yah, how dare you not go with your first, knee-jerk reaction. I'll burn your car!
There's an old Zen koan that describes your core self as the moon and emotions as clouds. Paraphrasing horribly, it says that as you look at the moon, you see clouds pass over it. The clouds don't change the moon, they just add to or detract from it, depending on your perspective. The moon stays the same. As such, remember that emotions come and go. Pay attention to them, but you don't have to act on them. They don't define you, they just show you (and those around you) what you are feeling at the time.
Seeing emotions this way helps prick holes in the film. Working on not acting strictly on emotions leads to us seeing more of the overall situation, more of our options, and lets us contemplate long-term and second-order consequences. Emotions are strong, important motivators, but they shouldn't be your overwhelming motivation. Feeling uncomfortable with a mess in your diaper motivated you to learn how to "hold it" and use a toilet, so emotions aren't to be shunned in a Mr. Spock-esque manner, but when you move beyond the lowest levels of Maslow's Hierarchy, you need to take longer and longer to consider what's going on. We are complex beings...ok, MOST of us are...well, MOST of us are, to some extent...anyway, and have a complex, multi-dimensional manner of approaching anything. Disregarding some of those dimensions is DANGEROUS!! Don't just challenge those in charge, challenge yourself! Why do I feel a compulsion to engage in behavior X? What could happen if I do? What could happen if I don't? Will I get a nice meal with the current season of the Doctor, or will I explode in the microwave and have a heck of a mess to clean up? Will I effectively have my voice heard, and considered, by those who are in power, or will I look like an ass who needs to be pepper-sprayed and thrown in jail? Gee, which is more effective (and more comfortable. If you've never experienced pepper spray, please trust me when I say it's an exceptionally challenging experience)?
I recall a woman telling me about a demonstration she took part in. Her group protested in front of the local district courthouse in favor of an idea that wasn't even a proposed bill. She was in law school at the time. If you know how the legislative process works, you know that her group was going out it backwards. She got somewhat indignant when I pointed this out. Lasagna!
I'm encouraged every time I read about a school giving mindfulness classes to young children, or using meditation in place of detention. They're teaching their students to slow-down and THINK about what they are doing, and about what is going on. These children will be constructive adults (I hope). I would love to see DISPASSIONATE politicians. No more impassioned speeches about how this group, or that, is being trod-upon by some other group. Instead, I'll vote for the politician who is calm. Who may make a mistake in front of the camera (a la Gary Johnson's flub with Syria), but who I believe is going to make dispassionate decisions based on logical calculations of what is in the long-term best interest of humanity.
Unfortunately, that kind of politician can't exist. The people who take that approach shy away from public office, and wouldn't be voted for by a nation of 17-year-olds who want to "catch the feels" in order to feel empowered.
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