Thank You Sir, May I Have Another Verbal Beating

I was verbally assaulted by a man yesterday.  It was entirely unexpected, hurtful, and humiliating.  And later, it was anger and tear inducing.

After thinking about it all day long, part of which was knowing how much that man hurt my husband,- because he was mean to his wife- I realized something; it helped me to remember that concept I occasionally forget: that everybody is someone's wife, husband, daughter, son, sister or brother.  And everybody has their own struggles and situations which make their life a little harder, or their day a little worse.

We dehumanize people. We put them into categories, categories that are 'against us.'  As long as they're against us, we can justify and rationalize our behavior, whether it be loving or not.  For instance, if that guy who ran the red light, cutting us off is 'just a crazy driver', then we feel justified in cursing at him.
But what if we had a secret knowledge about him?  What if we knew that he'd just found out his wife was in labor and needed to get to the hospital asap because she wasn't doing well?  Wouldn't we want him to get to the hospital and then do whatever it took to help him?

The man eventually calmed down and apologized to me.  That helped the situation.  But he felt as though he were protecting a loved one, so I understand.  Now.

As strange as it may sound, I thank you sir for reminding me of the human-ness of us all.  I sincerely hope I never forget.






I ♥ Love!