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Trying to Be A Better Person




One of the major efforts I am trying to consistently focus on is trying to be a better person. How do I define "better" you may ask? Well, for me, becoming "better" involves trying to more fully live my life in a way that has me trying to be as kind and considerate to others as I can be.

Sometimes, I find that I can be impatient, and right now I am finding that at those times I have typically been impatient, I have the most obvious chances I can identify at becoming "better". I have been working for the last week or so at stopping many of my impatient actions and instead working through better ways to interact with others around me.

I am still striving to do this more and more often. A case in point is illustrated by a failure I had this morning. On my way to work, there is a fairly busy 4-Way stop intersection. Because of the large volume of traffic, it is often very slow moving through that particular intersection. In the case of my own travels to the U, I need to make a right turn at this intersection. Today, when I finally arrived at the stop sign to make my right hand turn, the fellow 90 degrees to the left of me had the "right of way" as it would be his turn next to go (again, think of all four lanes around this 4-Way stop being backed up considerably). As is often the case, people are not paying particularly good attention, and this fellow, whose turn was before my own, was not moving at a pace that was in keeping with people in a rush hour style "hurry" to get to work. I waited one, two, three intervals for the fellow to move, and then I too my turn instead. Just as I was taking my turn, he started to gradually enter the intersection for his turn. So I kept going and ended up ahead of him on the same road going to the U.

My impatience had me move out of turn. Granted, the fellow could have moved faster to keep traffic flow moving, but just because he did not move at a desired pace, DID NOT mean I should have cut in front of him in the rotation. Immediately after I did this, I felt guilt, and I wished I had not done this. And, even though it is a common occurrence for many to do this when encountering distracted or slow to respond drivers, I wish I would have exhibited more of the patience I have been focusing on.

I do not know the driver who followed me into the U. But, in my mind, I did apologize for driving out of turn. It really did nothing for him. And, he probably did not even notice my cutting ahead in rotation as a problem or difficulty... he was distracted doing other things. But, I apologized, not because I expected a response, but because I felt it was wrong for me to cut ahead of the rotation.

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