"I wouldn't have honked if I'd known it was you."

Many years ago, I was driving to church, and stopped for a red light. The light changed, and I waited, my mind elsewhere. The large, expensive car behind me honked. I realized then that the light had changed, and proceeded to church.

I arrived, and as I was leaving to leave, and elderly couple that I knew approached me. The gentleman told me, "I'm sorry about honking at you this morning. I wouldn't have honked if I'd known it was you."

Too often, we bluster our way through life. Even caring individuals seem to step on the figurative toes of others, when those others are strangers to them. Even though, in my story above, I needed to be reminded to go, the man who honked at me was embarassed at having treated me like he would a stranger.

I often am told that, "Life isn't fair." This is a fact. However, much of life could be more fair, if the people in everyone's lives were to act more fairly. Do you yell at your employees? Mistreat your significant other? Ignore your children so that you can have more time to talk on the phone? Lie on your taxes? Keep the extra dollar the kid at the convenience store gave you in your change?

Before we do an action, we should ask ourselves how we would feel if we were on the other side. Will the kid working his first job, perhaps to save for college or to help out his parents, get fired because his till doesn't balance at the end of the day? Will someone tell him it was all his own fault, or that "life isn't fair"?

If I am the one who received that extra dollar, which I probably have no real need for, and I knowingly kept it, it's not all his fault. It's my fault, much more than it is his. He is being punished for an honest - if careless - mistake. I however, am benefitting from deliberately committing a wrong.

Now when someone in traffic ignores the light, I try to remind myself of the event mentioned earlier. I ask myself if there might be something in that person's life which is distracting him. Is he going to a funeral? Is he contemplating marriage? Is he on his way home from a double shift at work? Maybe he's just a jerk, but I prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt.