Did anyone ever tell you that grown up life can be a bit like school playground life but with mortgages and bills and the like?
There are cliques and popularity contests, competitions to see who has the best curtains and furniture, my job is better than your job - oh no it isn't..... my car goes faster than your car, we have 3 foreign holidays a year and to hell with the carbon footprints.
Oh man, someone let me off this crazy merry-go-round called adult life!
One incident started me thinking about negativity and selfishness and whether or not the 2 are linked by some cosmic factor, we were driving along with no worries when all of a sudden a van driver cut us up without warning. No hand gesture to say 'Ooops, sorry about that' or a friendly nod to acknowledge his vehicular faux pas. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
All because he'd decided he wanted to be in a different lane, we nearly get bumped. Is that selfish of him? I reacted with a certain amount of hostile language under my breath... well not so under my breath :) and the husband who is a driving instructor and very professional, wasn't phased - he just reacted swiftly and took us out of harms way.
He is always so calm in these kind of situations, where as I go from 0 to rage in about 3 seconds. I try so hard to be a good, kind and caring person and when other people act so differently it really bugs me. Then it bugs me that I am bugged about it and then WOW! - GUILT and SHAME about thinking so meanly about someone who could be having a terrible day. The van driver could have been in a hurry because his child was ill or his house had been burgled or any number of things. Or he could simply have been a douchebag.
How we react to people, who, let's face it, are big ol' meany meano's from Meansville is down to us. Trying to think the best of people can be challenging at times but I'm hoping goodness shines through and the good guys save the day. Sometimes the shiny happiness is clouded by people who only think of themselves, but do they do that on purpose or were they never taught how to empathise or look at the bigger picture. Can a person be truly selfish if what they are actually doing is not thinking of themselves but simply not thinking of others? Maybe their brains aren't stuck on 'me, me, me, me' but neither are they registering 'you, you, you' either.
Hopefully in the scheme of things my curtains don't maketh the man and I'm not the sum of my Ikea sofas or kitchen cabinets. Hopefully people won't judge me because of how I look or where I shop or how we drive, neither will they look on me with scorn because I think it's reasonable to put out my oap next door neighbours rubbish bins out for collection because it saves them having to do it. Or a million other kind things I try to do to ease someone else's day.
Kindness is the new black, or 30 or however the saying goes. Kindness actually rocks and lets hope people pass a little bit of it on as often as they can.
