In our lifetime, we meet lots of people day after day and every single individual we meet has an impact in our lives one way or the other.
Have you ever been in a filling station, bar or restaurant and had a rude attendant, barman or Waiter? Or maybe you are the one that had a rude customer?. The exchange doesn’t their. The thought of the experience remains all day. At home your family and friend hear you say "you won't believe how rude people can be."
Everyone wants to be around people who leave marks and not hurt. Those that have earned a special place in our mind/heart.
Those whose friendship we value, those that are very sincere and trustworthy.
Thanks to all these special individuals, we have been enriched and we have been able to experience true happiness. However, we have not been fair to any of them.
Now let’s think of another scenario.
Maybe in one of your worst days. You, thinking everything and everyone around are against you. You’re out to clear your head and maybe get a drink to make you feel better. Maybe somehow someone paid for your drink is something without you knowing him/her and didn’t even wait for you to thank. The exchange doesn't end there. You think about it all day. You go home to your family and friends and say "you won't believe how amazing some people can be."
Looking at both situations, the second exchange sounds much better to me. I don't know about you.
From the first and second exchange/situations, we see that the behavior of people around us difers. The facts is “we can’t control how people treat us”. We can’t control others. However, we can control ourselves. We shouldn’t be the rude customer/waiter. We should be like that person that paid someone’s drink without even knowing him/her (I'm not saying you have to buy everyone's drink, but I think you get the point.)
We meet some people just for a day and might never see them again. They might forget and not remember us years from now, but think about people who will never forget us: friends and family? We have a lot of influence/impact on them. The way we treat them matters a lot. Our thought most time is that they will always forgive us if we wrong them regardless of what we do or say to them. Always remember, words hurt and actions aren't easily forgotten. We need to be just as thoughtful of them as we are with the strangers that we meet.
In our life time, we will meet different people and they will impact us positively or negatively. In the same way, they will also feel our impact on them. We are writers of other people’s stories and if we want others to write nice stories about us then we should treat them nicely. We should make it a goal in our lives to leave marks, not scars.
