Trying to be a better person.

Sunday, June 15, 2008 at 1:09am
When I gave up drinking I embarked upon a 12 step program to sobriety, and the 12 steps tend to be ongoing. The last 3 in particular, involve continuously monitoring yourself to make sure that you're not backsliding into old ways of thinking. For me this really involves watching my negative emotions and exploring them if they start getting out of hand.

Anger is a big trouble spot for me, I get mad really easy. Somebody gave me a little trick to help defuse my anger when it's getting on top of me. It may have been in the book Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, and it may not have been. Anyway the trick is to look at the causes of your negative emotions, and try to see what the universe (or God if you prefer) is trying to teach you.

I've been doing this, and I've found that it's usually patience that the universe is trying to teach me. I get really mad when I'm stuck in traffic, or waiting for someone, experiencing delays, etc. Over the past week I've really come to notice this, and just knowing that it gets me wound up has been helpful. I've been able to laugh at my own impatience a little more. And then today my patience taught me something unexpected.

I was standing in line to buy cat litter, which should have been an in and out operation. Instead I discovered that the store I'd gone to was incredibly short staffed. There was a long line up at the till, and at customer service as well. The girl at the till kept yelling back to us in line, "I'm a one girl show tonight, they can help you at customer service as well.", but she couldn't see customer service and didn't realize it was just as bad there.

I realized I was starting to get mad, and so I distracted myself with my surroundings. In front of me were 2 African ladies, as evidenced by their clothing and their skin color and their language and accents. They seemed pretty happy, and not to care very much about the wait. Perhaps it was presumptious of me, but I imagined that they may have come from a place where they didn't have the freedom to go out and shop because of war or food shortages. I was thinking that for them there were probably worse things than standing in a lineup. It got me thinking about some of the news reports I've seen from places like Rwanda and Darfur, where rival tribes would massacre and mutilate entire villages.

When it came their turn to make purchases there were some further delays. One of them was inquiring in very uncertain English about a scrapbook that she'd found on sale. She was trying to get the cashier to explain what scrapbooking was. The other lady had no English. I assumed she had just arrived here because her friend had to help her differentiate between the coins she had to pay with. Now normally this kind of thing would drive me right up the wall, and i realized this standing in line, and I realize that I need to work on my understanding as well as my patience. It wasn't driving me up the wall today however, and I was quite happy to smile whenever the first lady looked back and let her know that I was in no hurry, even if everyone behind me was. It was then that I had a hard hitting smack you between the eyes lifechanging moment.

Both of these women had scarves wrapped around their heads and I hadn't really gotten a look at the woman who spoke no English. She turned to smile as they were leaving, and I saw that I hadn't been in the least presumptious when thinking they had dealt with worse things. Her face was a mess of scars. Deep cuts, punctures and wounds. This woman had probably been very close to death at the time she received those wounds. and they were definitely inflicted by someone that had been trying to kill her. I realize I'm not a forensic scientist or anything, but they were definitely wounds. Driving home to my wife and 3 children I found myself wondering if she had a husband and children, if they had been through what she'd been through, if they'd survived. I recalled a documentary about the ridiculously high infant mortality rates in Africa, and wondered if she had lost children, had it been through war or famine or disease?
On my way home somebody cut in front of me and I braked hard while they sped through the yellow light that I would have made if not for them. But at the red light I thought and I was thankful. There are definitely worse things than waiting