Saturday, January 4, 2014

Accidental Humility

I wrote this back in December. It's been hiding in my notebook since then. I have been reluctant to publish it because it doesn't shed a very favorable light on me. I have wrestled with it for a month or so and decided, so what - life happens. My perspective has been altered because of it. Maybe someone elses will be too.

I don't think I had road rage. I had road entitlement. I was frequently exasperated by people but I was also friendly, saying things like, "thanks guy!" and waving if someone let me in. I still continually judge driving ability - like the people - I saw one just today who swerve to exit the interstate at the last minute scarcely missing the short poles that mark the exit. As if the risk of that is worth it when you can just go to the next exit and turn around or go the long way through town. 

My road entitlement first became evident in the mid-90's. Even then I was trying to keep it at bay. One day, a driver in front of me did something I can't even remember and all I did was sigh heavily. Alex, then about 4 years-old, said, "That guy's an idiot, right Mom?" He'd heard that somewhere before. I know. I'm sure the Mother of Year Award went to me that year.

In early 2013, I was explaining to Rich how when particular drivers (in construction or on one particular overpass I take to work) speed to the front of the closed lane and then put on a blinker, it really drives me crazy. My reasoning was that they have an exaggerated sense of self-importance and think what they're going to do is more important that what the rest of us, who have been patiently waiting in line, have to do. He looked at me, puzzled, and said, "I don't think it's that. I think they're just going about their day, worried about what they have to get done at home and work." He's often right about these things.

My accidental humility came, as I said, in early December when I was a tish late for a hair appointment. I was waiting to turn right out of my neighborhood. A car was coming in the right lane of the four lane highway. No one was in the left lane. After she passed by and it was clear for me to pull out, she changed to the left lane. I irritatedly thought to myself (and may have actually said out loud), "Now you change lanes!"

As I got closer to her, I saw that she had the Nebraska license plate with one star that read, "Fallen Hero," then, on a yellow ribbon I recognized Matthew's name - a fallen hero from the war in Iraq who has a street in our town named for him...

This as I was listening to Josh Groban's Christmas CD, "Truly he taught us to love one another..." I had let my tendency to rush cause me to be irritated by a few seconds delay without thinking of the real human in that vehicle: a mother who has experienced unfathomable grief and given the greatest sacrifice.

This made me wonder - how many other people with less obvious pain I've been irritated with for no reason? There was a lesson here for me - and maybe for all of us - that we get out of our own heads and consider that other people may actually have more important things going on than being late for a haircut...or simply that a few seconds either way doesn't matter.

It's one of the reasons New Year's Resolution #15 is so important to me: I will carry courage, compassion (including self-compassion) and connection with me in my heart on the journey of this one life...even when things get scary (or frustrating).

Who knows, it's possible the person in that other vehicle is carrying precious cargo like this:



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