Today I made a careless, distracted human error. I was talking on my phone while driving. I came to a stop at a small 3 way intersection. There was one other car at each stop sign. I chose to pull out at the same time another woman pulled out but I did not see her. We were going roughly 5 miles an hour. She ended up behind me and stayed on her horn until the next stop sign just down the road, then got out of her car and came up to my window. "You almost killed my kids, you #*($ing $(#&%!!!," she yelled at me, the look on her face so angry it took me aback. She turned on her heels and got back in her car. That did not diffuse her anger. She then followed me to the street I turned onto, tried to run me off the road and then pulled up in front of me and blocked both lanes of the two way street so no one could move. She got out of her car again and came up to my window. "You almost killed my kids and got me hysterical!," she yelled. I rolled down my window, looked her right in the eye and said. "I'm sorry. I was wrong. You are right." "
"THANK you," she bellowed and got back in her car and drove off. A soft answer does indeed, many times, turn away wrath.
Traffic moved again and I began to think about what had just happened. I ran my errands and came home, still pondering. I sat down at my computer and looked up the words "$*(#ing" and "#)%*$", not because I don't know what they mean. I wanted to read the intent behind the words. "Contempt, displeasure," it read. It's the contempt that gripped me. I understand a mama's anger when her babies are in danger. I own that I was distracted and took myself out of turn at the stop sign. I acknowledge that, while death was most certainly not on the table, at most a fender bender could have occurred. That would have been inconvenient, costly and it would have been my fault. I deserved a "You should have been paying better attention." But contempt?
I considered that in light of all that's going on in our world. How our belief and our anger skews our thinking and causes us to lash out full on contemptuously towards someone who we don't even know while our kids look on. How the anonymous part of that makes it easier to rage, to inflate, to explode, to put our foot down hard and venomously.
I will pay better attention. My fellow drivers deserve to expect that of me. I will also be mindful to quell contempt wherever I am the holder of it or the cause of it, to not rush to defend myself where it will only feed ire, to choose to breathe deep and look at the road ahead of any choice I make in the moment I'm in.
Great post. :)
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