Hold Your Horns
Today, while waiting in traffic, a man in a car one lane over lost his mind. He was in the turn lane about 10 cars back from the front of the line. The arrow turned green. Cars didn’t move. He was on his horn in seconds. I could tell from his body language and my amateur lip reading skills that the interior of the car was hostile. After a bit, the line finally began to move. His car only made it halfway to the light before the arrow turned red. His reaction was to punch the steering wheel and throw his body around like a flailing child. He was beyond my view for lip reading, but I suspect his mouth was keeping up with his extremities in a display of disgust. No doubt the front driver was graded all sorts of stupid for holding everyone else up.
After the arrow turned red, the through traffic lanes had the green light. As I drove past the intersection, I saw an old man slowly making his way along the sidewalk in the rain. He was walking away from the intersection. What do you want to bet this man was in the crosswalk when the arrow turned green?
My mind went to my raging road companion a quarter of a mile behind me waiting for another shot at a green arrow who was never going to know what had actually transpired and was likely still seething.
How often are we honking our horns and judging others poorly (literally and figuratively) when we perceive their actions to be insufficient or out-of-step with our urgency? Do they see obstacles or reasons to pause we are missing from a different vantage point? How often are we grading others poorly who are actually excelling at being good humans?
I’m finding myself wondering this tonight as I’m stuck in my own “how could they” and “how could they not” judgment cycles because the green arrow of progress I thought I was about to cruise through just turned red with people ahead of me slowing down traffic.
