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Kindness
Here is a basic fact of life, everyone is going through something. I read an article recently that was based on a Ted talk that described how people are so wrapped up in their own circumstances that they place them above what someone else may be dealing with. An example was road rage and how you can be rushing to work, someone speeds past you cutting you off, you get mad and curse and scream at them. However, what you don’t know is the person in the other car is rushing his wife to the hospital who is screaming in pain because the baby is coming out.
Whose situation is more serious, most would say, the pregnant lady, but honestly, it all depends on personal perspective. Maybe the person rushing to work was on their last strike and could lose their job for being late and the reason they were late in the first place was that they had a hard time getting their kids out of the house and off to school. I ask again, whose situation is more dyer. The facts are both people had legitimate excuses to be rushing and neither had control over why they were. The only thing they did have control over was how they responded to one another as they crossed paths.
Today, I missed an opportunity to respond with kindness. If I am being totally transparent, God is still working on my patience and my temper. My kids have helped a lot with my temperance however that grace hasn’t totally moved over to adults yet. The problem is, I have zero tolerance for ignorance. Ignorance literally makes my blood boil. You want to see someone go from zero to one hundred in seconds, expose me to ignorance, I lose control. This is not good though, not for me or anyone involved.
To make a really long story short, after church (ugh this is so bad that this happened after church), I needed to make a quick stop at the grocery store and as I was pulling into the parking lot there was a woman parked in the middle of the lot blocking three spaces, one of which I was trying to get into. I tapped my horn (the friendly, excuse me tap) and she didn’t move, I repeated the gesture as a curtesy that maybe she didn’t hear the first one she didn’t move again. So, I decided to try to go around her and back into one of the spaces which I couldn’t do because again she was in the way (at this point she definitely saw me). I rolled down my window, waved my hand at her, still nothing. Now my blood is boiling. I opened my door and was in the process of jumping out of my car and running over to her window as finally she rolled it down and looked at me like SHE was annoyed. I screamed hanging halfway out my car, “CAN YOU PLEASE MOVE YOUR CAR SO I CAN PARK? I ASKED YOU SEVERAL TIMES” In a very disrespectful tone, she replied she didn’t hear me, rolled her eyes and pulled into one of the empty spaces. At that point, I screamed at her again, that she should get her hearing checked.
Ok, ok, so I am embarrassed to be sharing this, but there is a point I need to make, I could have handled this situation better. Maybe, I should have been more patient and waited on her to get out of the way. Maybe, I could have found another space somewhere else. There are many things I myself could have done differently. The thing that has really been weighing on me is how angry I was. I should have never let someone get me that mad. Why was I jumping out of my car? What were my intentions if she didn’t roll her window down? Was I going to bang on her window, drag her out the car? I mean really was any of this that serious? The moral of this story is we have to do better. I have to do better. One scenario could have been me politely knocking on her window and saying, “Hi, are you okay? Are you having car trouble, maybe I can help because you're parked in the middle of the parking lot?” Yes, that is a little sarcastic, however still a better reaction than my actual one.
We have to do better people (I say we because her response was not kind either). Our world is in disarray, we are in the middle of a global pandemic where people are dying every day. Our medical professionals are exhausted with cases, overworked and understaffed and I’m out here about to fight over a parking space. I am ashamed of myself. From today on, I am going to work on my tolerance for ignorance. I am going to be kind to people even when I think they don’t deserve it and I am going to find coping mechanisms to stop me from getting so angry so fast. It’s not who I want to be, what I want to represent, or the example I want to set for my children. Oh God, I’m so happy my children weren’t there to witness that side of me. I pledge to bring more kindness to the world and less anger from here on out.