Earlier this week, I had to go to the post office to pick up a package. Now, I never go to the post office; it's all the way on the other side of town, and most delivery services will just leave it at your door if you're not home. But no, not this one. So I went to the post office for the first time in probably a year.
Once I'm done at the post office, I'm attempting to turn left to go back home. And I'm quickly finding out that turning left onto Hogan Ln. is not an easy task. So I'm looking both ways, like a bird looking left and right and then left again. At this point, there's a line of cars behind me, also waiting to turn out.
So I finally see a gap, a good gap to pull out into. And as soon as I start to go into the road, this old lady swoops in and turns left into the post office next to me. I have to slam on my brakes just to keep from hitting her. As she drives past me, she starts yelling at me through her car window. While I can't read lips very well, I am very sure she called me some unfriendly names. Well now, I don't even have time to react to her rudeness because I'm halfway in the road at this point. Thankfully, an older gentleman in a pickup truck has mercy on me and lets me pull out in front of him.
As I drove back to my house, I was furious. I started thinking of all the things I wanted to say to that old lady, and just how I would say them. And the more I thought about it, I knew exactly what I wanted to say to her.
I wanted to ask her what exactly made her decide that her pulling into the post office was more important than everyone else's agendas. I wanted to ask her what made her so miserable that she gained happiness from yelling at me from her car window.
I wanted to know if she knew that literally everyone she came into contact that day is fighting a battle she knows nothing about. Everyone from the guy bagging your groceries to the lady pumping gas next to you has something going on that you'd never guess. Every single person has a story about their lives that will bring you to your knees.
And I wanted to tell her that cursing out a college girl for nearly hitting your car when she swooped in from my blind spot, was going to do nothing but make her feel entitled for about 4.5 seconds. It wasn't going to teach me a lesson, and it wasn't going to do any good to each of our lives whatsoever.
After I was done ranting to myself in my car, I didn't want to find that old lady anymore and give her a piece of my mind. Instead, I almost felt obligated to do something inherently nice for someone else, just so I could even out the negativity that the old lady had tried to put in my life.
So I want this to serve as a challenge, both to myself and those reading. Some people in this world are just so miserable, that they forget that every other person they meet is also struggling in ways you could not imagine. But perhaps we could make their days a little bit brighter by showing them kindness. And when the world does not show us kindness, we find ways to channel that energy for good instead.
