I love 'taking notes' of things I see when I'm out doing errands around town. It's amazing to find things in every day life that inspire you and I can't tell you how many times I 'witnessed' something in every day life that turned into a blog post or some piece of content.
I'm a sponge of this thing called life, and love getting ideas for blog posts just by...Living every day life :)
However...There is a dark side of this.
Sometimes, what you witness is the ugly side of humanity. And while the story I'm about to share seems pretty rotten, hopefully it inspires us to all be a little better each and every day.
Let me set the stage...
Do you guys remember about 2 years ago?
It was at the height of the pandemic, and life as we knew it basically stopped. The only people that seemed to be able to 'work' were labeled as essential workers. Healthcare, emergency services and the guys and gals that ran the fast food restaurants.
At the height of the pandemic, these every day 'heroes' were celebrated, at least up here in Canada.
I guess that 'hero label' expired...
Today I was standing in line at a local coffee shop and a middle aged guy stormed up to the front of the line.
Visibly upset, he tore into the young lady who was behind the register and demanded 'hot chocolate not chocolate flavored water'...His words of course.
The young lady seemed struck by how rude he was but smiled and went to replace the drink he was furious about. I mean, he was MAD. She returned with the fresh drink and then continued to talk down to her about how awful it was that he got 'chocolate flavored water' instead of the hot chocolate.
I just stood there scratching my head and thought to myself....This guy must have been having a really bad day. But my goodness, why on earth would you take that anger out of a teenager working at a coffee shop?
Everyone in the line just looked at this guy and shook their heads....
Is this how we should be treating each other?
Look, I'm no saint and God knows, I've lost my cool a few times before but it made me really gut check myself on how much every day people put up with the rest of us...
My challenge to myself, is to never get THAT upset over something so trivial. It's not worth it. You know that old saying that life is short, there is no reason for us to be rude to anyone we encounter each and every day.
I dunno, maybe this post is jut me thinking out loud because I was so taken at the anger some guy had over a drink...But also to put it out there in the universe. Just an act of kindness every day, may be exactly what we all need in this crazy world.
Give it freely! You never know whose day you may make from smiling and treating them with respect....
Crazy talk I know!