Wednesday, July 6, 2011

What's the hurry?

It concerns me that so many people seem to go through life in a bubble - lost in their own little worlds (hehehe - my little brother reasons that all these people in their own little worlds are evidence for parallel universes...not sure about the plural on that one). Anyway, when I was going for a run this morning, I'm waiting on a corner for the "walk." Meanwhile, the traffic light had been green for all of 2 milliseconds, and the second car back starts honking at the poor woman first in line to go. Really? Didn't we learn in driver's ed that you should wait for a count of three after the light turns before proceeding, just in case someone decides to run the red, anyway? Don't get me wrong - I have actually honked at someone in front of me when the green arrow had been green and turned to yellow and the driver still hadn't made a move. But I swear, this driver was honking the second the light turned green. Just chill out, please.

This comes on the heels of trying to exit fairgrounds following the fireworks on the 4th with Neil. Everyone is in the same situation trying to leave. No one is going to be leaving in a hurry. Just accept it, and stop being the douche nudging right up to the car in front of you and cutting other people off so you can hurry up and get...wherever it is you think you are going... Not to mention that, if you ARE in such a hurry to leave, how is it you have time to stop and hang out the window to talk to your buddy passing by about the party you are trying to get to (meanwhile stopping all traffic flow)?

Oh, and to the driver who gave me the dirty look as I was exiting the grocery store today - I apologize for having gotten in your way. I am sorry you had to actually stop at the stop-sign and wait for me to clear the cross-walk so you could speed along your way. Forgive me, I will try to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Not like I'm such a saint, myself, and I shouldn't judge because I don't know what kind of day "you" have been having, but what happened to patience and taking turns, and waving people in, or letting pedestrians cross the street (or being a courteous pedestrian). What happened to smiling? Even when I am in the foulest of foul moods, I really try to smile at the people with whom I am interacting. And I think the reason it really bothers me is knowing that many of these people have children present--what behaviors do you think your child is learning? There is a commercial from Australia that I go so far as to show my Human Growth & Development class when we talk about Bandura and social-cognitive learning...what kind of young citizens are we raising - what kind of society will we be?

1 comment:

Heidi said...

I agree with every word of this. And that video is pretty powerful. It's what I try to remember, though. Do I want to be rude and impatient and unsafe in order to reach my destination 5 minutes earlier, or do I want to be relaxed, patient, kind, and just enjoy the journey? Kind of one of my life philosophies, there.