Oh no you didn’t!

“Patience is the companion of wisdom.”  Saint Augustine

This may sound very strange, but today my patience has been sorely tested by people with no patience.  You may say it was to be expected and is somewhat deserved.   After all, it was my decision to do some shopping and fight traffic the day after Christmas.

It seems that today, the spirit of Christmas was greatly lacking by some of the road warriors I shared the pavement with today.  I heard more than my share of horns honking and saw incredulous and hateful looks exchanged.

To finish out the day, I was driving in the direction of home where there is a slow zone for a few miles.  I was obeying the speed limit and the driver behind me was risking life and limb trying to find a way to get around me without colliding with oncoming traffic.  He finally passed about the time the speed limit returned to normal, and when I sped up to appropriate number, I found myself stuck behind him going less than the speed limit, for the most part.  Maybe he just had a thing for being the first car in line?  I am not going to lie, it took all I had not to put all of my 420hp to use and blow right past him, but then I would have been exhibiting the same behavior as he.

We ended up arriving at the same place at the same time which was no surprise to me.  I am not without fault as far as pushing the speed limit goes and I can certainly admit to many times when I was in a hurry and pushed my luck.  However, watching people today, I was once again amazed at how ridiculous full grown men and women can behave over a parking spot or a car that doesn’t have its wheels rolling within 1 second of the light turning green, or how some will risk their own and others safety due to short tempers.

I wonder if all of the honkers and passers and eye rollers behave that way all of the time or if they are just human like me, and struggle worse on some days than others?

We need to plan ahead to alleviate the stress of running late, realize that our fellow humans aren’t holding us up intentionally; there isn’t some premeditated, devious plan to keep us from getting to our destination.  And finally, sometimes you just need to stop and breathe.