Today I Saw Society and I Did Not Like What I Saw (In Me)

    Life’s lessons often come in the mundane.  Mine typically come from behind the wheel, which reinforces two things: 1) I should ride public transportation and 2) I should ride public transportation.  I was participating in an event that working parents during the summer know all too well: hot potato with offspring.  Which means I was on a not so leisurely drive to take kids from one place across town to drop them off at a relative’s home while on a lunch break, thus breaking most traffic laws to make sure I could get back to work on time (I will pause right here and applaud all single parents. I don't know how you do it).  Oh, and I changed my route hoping to find a shortcut only to get caught in construction traffic that reduced traffic down to one lane guarded by workers with the SLOW/STOP signs.  Oh, boy.  Did I mention I should probably ride public transportation?  

Our line of cars got moving first, no doubt to the chagrin of the other line of cars (suckers!), only to get thwarted (#@%&!).  The motorist directly in front of me used her blinker to turn left into her driveway (the nerve of some people wanting to go home…).  The problem was stark.  The driver wanting to turn was blocked by the other line, and the other line was blocked due to the length of our line extending into the single lane of construction traffic.  It was like a game of Snake on a Nokia phone in its twilight moments.  I did not waste time and immediately went into judgment mode.  "Why did the other driver of the SUV block off her driveway?  Wasn’t he thinking of someone other than himself?  How can anyone in life get to where they are going with inconsiderate drivers?  Raaarrrrrghghgh."  And in between the successive jumps of my systolic and diastolic pressures, a glimmer of hope.  The cars inched forward to allow a space large enough for the car in front of me to turn into her driveway.  I could almost hear the Hallelujah chorus with a dose of “Fight Song” but before the first notes rang out, the car behind the SUV pulled up with the SUV and blocked the driveway again.  Raaarrrrrghghgh.  Happy tunes shifted to “Mama said knock you out” (or was it “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”?).  I raised my hand, banged the wheel, and laughed - not the happy kind of laugh but the Oh-my-gosh-how-could-you-thwart-all-of-humanity-scoff laugh).  I glanced over to see the driver of the car who blocked off the driver in front of me only to have our eyes meet.  Her expression seemed to say a combination of ‘oh,darn, I am embarrassed that I blocked them off and can’t get out of the way’ with a dose of ‘what is up with that guy scoffing with the ‘oh-my-gosh-how-could-youthwart-all-of-humanity-scoff laugh’.  As cars wiggled like a person in a pandemic trying to get back into their favorite pair of jeans, a gap opened up large enough for the car to turn into the driveway and I floored it home still miffed that inconsiderate people are given driver’s licenses.  As I dumped kids off (careful to use my blinkers because you can’t scoff at other drivers for not using their blinkers if you do not faithfully use yours) and kept at least three wheels on the ground while blitzing back to work, I started to think about the interaction I had with the other drivers and found myself wanting due to who I was behind the wheel.  

As for lessons?  First and foremost, it started to sink in that judgement of others always implies you understand their motives.  If I think about it, when the people blocked the driveway, it got me worked up because I just knew they did it on purpose without a modicum of consideration for others.  But what do I really know?  Maybe they were distracted?  Maybe they were on the way to the oncologist for the results of a life-changing test?  Maybe they have an irrational fear of people pulling in front of them into driveways? Maybe they just weren’t paying attention?  Maybe, just maybe, what really matters is that I pay close attention to the one - the only one - whose intentions I am intimately aware of: my own.  I was quick to rush in by what I could observe, applied what might be logical conclusions about what people were doing and why they were doing it, and ended up no better off than if I were to roll my window down and congratulate the other drivers for being so efficient in completely blocking off the driveway.  

The next lesson I got from it was with the ‘who’ part of the problem.  For me to get worked up at one driver for blocking the driveway thus blocking my path, I was errantly believing that she and she alone was responsible for me not traveling with ease to my destination.  Why didn’t I blame the construction workers?  Perhaps I could blame the people who should have walked, biked, taken the day off, or ridden public transport?  Even better, why not blame the city for making improvements of the road during this time along my route?  I didn’t because I was upset and it just works better when you can blame one person.  Because if only one person is culpable, you can believe their presence caused the problem, thus their absence will fix it.  The reality is that one individual is rarely solely responsible for anything but having to figure out all of the parties involved doesn’t make finger-pointing a very efficient enterprise.

And what about responsibility?  In the act of blaming one driver for thwarting me from getting to work on time, I also make the unstated assumption that I did not contribute to the problem nor could I contribute to the solution of the problem.  One could (and I might even argue that they should) sit down and brainstorm an impressive list of things that they could do to improve the problem.  For example, I could have created a Facebook group called the ‘Drivers and Workers for Harmony’ and monitored all routes and construction and given timely instruction.  I could have jumped out of my car and started directing traffic to ensure routes weren’t blocked or even cut hard right (if, of course, I wasn’t tailgating), jumped the curb, and continued on.  I could have even sold my car weeks prior out of concern for my blood pressure and humanity and walked everywhere as opposed to driving...and I think you get the point.  Sure some solutions are more outlandish than others, but the point is that they are all feasible and they all could help solve things as opposed to just getting upset and directing anger and frustrations to the visible offender.  

So why write this?  First as an apology and a confession.  I am probably (well, more than likely) not the most patient behind the wheel.  I need to do better.  Friends are much better at holding us accountable than strangers (strangers do not have much patience for the oh-my-gosh-how-could-you-thwart-all-of-humanity-scoff laugh). 

Second, our nation is going through a lot of changes.  From what I have seen so far, it has reminded me of a quote from my 5th grade Challenge teacher, Mr. Maily: “The only person who likes change is a wet baby.”  Change is coming, but before they rename Facebook to ‘In your Face-book’, we need to remember that in the days to come, people are going to remember how you made them feel much longer than the specifics of what you said.  And progress is much easier when people do not have to wait for wounds to heal before they can work together.

So as we start a new week, how about bow our heads in prayer for our leaders, for our nation, and for our families so we can all start making changes for the better.