C U Next Tuesday??? For Real, Dude? I Don't Even Know You...

I found myself bursting into laughter today when I moved into the center turning lane, awaiting my turn to ... well, turn. There was a truck in the same lane facing me, so I assumed he was either turning into the same place as I was, or he was waiting for a break in traffic to merge. Evidently, neither of these scenarios seemed to be the case as he abruptly merged and made an overly dramatic swerve around me (though I was completely in the center lane) and yelled out his open window, calling me a cunt.

A cunt? Really? I was fairly certain the only people who would resort to calling me that were a select few guys I made the grievous error to date, after I dumped them. Oh, and my ex-husband. I loathe the word. Even writing/typing it seems wrong. Clearly this guy was having an epically bad day (and likely has many of those given he would resort to using trashy words like that), since nothing about where my car and I sat at that moment prevented him from being able to turn in either direction or rejoin traffic.

That encounter got me thinking. How often do we react heatedly, without thought, to exactly what has upset us? Is there ever a time when we consciously stop ourselves and back up a step or two, to evaluate the situation and the retort/response we were about to unleash? There should be.

I've managed to come by good practice in patience and not allowing my knee-jerk reactions get the better of me on my commute to and from work. During the course of that 40-minute drive I experience erratic drivers, the occasional school bus, cars pulling out in front of me with little notice, and yes, people flipping me off or cussing me out most often because I came into their field of vision at that unfortunate moment. It would be easy to get heated and retaliate, but in the end that would only make the situation worse. Better to be the one to let it roll off and move my focus and energy on to having a great day. The longer we sit fuming about things we can do nothing about, and are frequently not done with any intention of offending or wronging us, the less time we get to enjoy the rest of the world we encounter, smiling and performing acts of kindness. Those are the important things; the only things that should be allowed to make noticeable impact. A person can be carried much farther on the kindness they are bestowed, than on the meanness cast in their direction.