I almost caused a traffic accident yesterday.
My fault entirely. I did a lane change without checking or signalling and a man in a 4WD behind me had to slam on his brakes so much they squealed. I have no idea how close we came to colliding. He pulled up beside me at the next set of lights and quite rightly abused me for the total idiot I was.
To him, and to any other drivers in the vicinity who may have been alarmed or also had to take evasive action, I deeply apologise. It must have been very scary for the guy in the 4WD. Had we collided the total blame would have been mine. He saved both of us.
Why I did it was simply because I didn’t think. Through a single moment of impatience I put someone else’s life at risk.
I find lately that driving is becoming more and more stressful for me. Perhaps I should give it away, although that will have repercussions for work having to use public transport. It’s not just a “go to work and come home at the end of the day” thing for what I do.
But I get impatient when driving. I need to curb that, to consider others more. I must do that or cause a major accident sometime.
That was the apology. But there are some things, not related to driving, that I will not curb my impatience about, and certainly won’t apologise for.
There are things that make me mad about the way some people act. And if this sounds hypocritical, given my episode in the car yesterday, then that’s what it is. I don’t care. Being hypocritical does not make me wrong.
One of the major things about people that gets me mad is ignorance. Let’s face it, we have the capacity these days to find out more stuff about stuff than ever before. And some people choose not to. They blindly go on wallowing in ignorance for some reason, choosing to believe something simply because they want to, in the face of all facts to the contrary.
Another thing is pretension. I hate it. Some people spend all the time thinking the universe revolves around them, that they must be the centre of attention at all times, that they are one of “the beautiful people” and we must worship them. My cat does that. But then he’s a cat, he doesn’t know any better (and he’s cute as a button, which makes up for it). People should know better.
Other things: The selfish rich. “Trickle-down economics”. Conspiracy theorists. Braggarts. People who are cruel to animals or children. People who insist their way is the only way. People who know you are behind them on the escalator wanting to get through and refuse to move aside.
All of these and more.
My sociophobia doesn’t help. I hate being in a crowd. I’ve been known to choose not to do the shopping because there would be too many people in the supermarket. I hate waiting in a queue. I walk quickly, and have done so ever since I was a hurried (and harried) articled clerk for a law firm and had to move around the city in very quick time. I walk faster than most people. That makes walking along a crowded street a frustrating experience.
I know some of this is my fault. But here is the warning part of this post: those things that aren’t my fault I will continue to get mad about, continue to criticise, continue to harp on. They deserve my ire.
So I apologise for those things that are my fault. Even if I don’t know they are.
But the other stuff, not so.
Russell Proctor www.russellproctor.com
russellproctor 