Saturday, November 15, 2008

Take a deep breath and remember your priorities

Increasing unemployment. Recession. Economic Doom, and a stock market that's falling faster than Lindsay Lohan's relevance. The negativity and uncertainty seems to have eroded our manners and patience for mankind.
A couple weeks ago I was riding with my dad in his van. He stopped at a gas station to fill his tires up with air. As he filled up the first tire, a thirty-something woman with two kids in the back seat of her Oldsmobile Cutlas Ciera (circa. 1988) pulled up next to us, waiting to use the air machine. As my dad moved to the back tires to fill them, the woman became increasingly agitated. Apparently my dad was taking too long for her. She began motioning angrily toward my father and when my father finished filling up, she clearly said "IT'S ABOUT F*CKING TIME!"
Have we really reached the point where mothers are cursing out 60 year old men in front of their children?
What would happen if that happened to be her last day on earth, would she really want to "go out like that?" Is that how she'd want her kids, or more importantly this world, to remember her? Before we start cussing out senior citizens, before we start loudly sighing at the elderly woman in front of us that is writing a check for a quart of milk and a half dozen eggs, can we please remind ourselves of our priorities?
The next time i'm confronted with a pimply faced teenager working at the convenient store who text messages his buddy while counting out my change, I pray that God grant me the patience to remember my priorities in life. Also God, can you please remind me to not "sweat the small stuff," which is next to impossible for me since I tend to sweat simply reading the morning paper.

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