Not that kind of bar, silly - I always know where that bar is. I'm talking about the metaphorical bar we set for our expectations of human kindness.
I was driving through a heavily congested part of town the other day as seemingly all of southern California's drivers were being forced to merge into one lane in a very short distance. I was attempting to make a pretty tricky left turn out of a shopping complex, across several flowing lanes of traffic, and into this particularly garbled construction zone. There was an easier, more circuitous route, but of course I was only interested in the direct route.
So there I was, sitting hunched over my steering wheel, squinting into the sun, music turned way down low for concentration, waiting for my big chance. It wasn't coming. One light cycle, two, three, four. As soon as I would get a break in on-coming traffic, there was nobody willing to lose three car lengths of time to wave me in on the other side. As my frustration grew, I began to think less about the task at hand and more about the math on the number of additional minutes that aforementioned circuitous route would have taken me vs. the number of stupid minutes I'd been sitting here at this increasingly bad decision. And then it happened: a angel in human form saw what I was trying to do - he saw that I had a break in on-coming traffic stayed back to wave me in when it was finally his chance to advance through the intersection. I was in! On my way! I waved through my windshield as I was pulling in, smiled a big smile, and continued to wave through my rearview once I was in line.
The point of this post is this: Is the bar for human kindness so low that the simple gesture of being let into traffic could genuinely brighten my day and restore a little faith in the goodness of people?
Do other people feel the same sense of moderate-to-significant elation at being let into traffic by a kind stranger? Or have I, personally, set my bar too low? I'd hate to raise the bar and potentially live in repeated disappointment, but I also don't want to be the cynic who thinks she's living in an unfriendly world. Just words for thought...
