Here’s the thing to ponder: The other person is never the problem.

What does that mean? If someone behaves rudely and you get angry with him, the problem isn’t the other person’s actions … it’s your reaction. Or more accurately, it’s not even your reaction, but your action based on that reaction.

This point of view contends that other people’s actions are just an outside stimulus, just like a leaf falling outside, or a rock falling in front of us on a mountain path. When a rock falls in front of us, we don’t get mad at the rock. We go around it. When a leaf falls, we don’t think it’s being rude to us. We just watch it, and think of it as a natural phenomena.

Other people’s actions are really no different.

Leo Babauta — The Little Book of Contentment