My Monday morning ride to work this week gave me three illustrations for this post. Keep in mind that my commute takes me no more than 20 minutes.
First, I was almost in an accident caused by someone trying to avoid a chipmunk. Really! I am all for treating animals well, but when it puts your life and others at risk, it is not worth it. Second, I witnessed a Dump Truck over shoot a stop line at an intersection and proceed to back up. All well and good…except for the pickup truck who had stopped behind him. He was able to move before anything happened. Finally, when I was pulling into the public parking lot adjacent to the church, I had to proceed very slowly due to a gentleman that decided to walk through the parking lot…directly through the middle of the driving lane. He had no concern (or maybe even awareness) to the fact that someone could not get through.
These stories are entertaining and maybe even scary, but I dare say we are not far from this every day in our lives. Now I am not meaning in our driving (though maybe that is you!) but in our lack of awareness of how our actions impact the lives of those around us. I know that I have a tendency to be a bull in a china shop. It is not even that I am not concerned for those around me, it is just that I am unaware of them and how my actions can/will be received by them.
Sometimes the answer to this is to just slow down. We live in a very fast-paced, microwave ready world that has so much going on at once that it is easy to tune out others. I think that we have all been “victim” to those who operate this way. Do we realize that we can be doing it too?
Nothing to profound, but in keeping with the blog title, it is what has been bouncing around in my head.
