about the fact that i exist and matter whether you think so or not.

on my commute home today, i was completely disrespected.

how, you might wonder, if i was alone, was i so utterly dissed?

by another driver.

see, when you cut someone off purely because you don’t want them to be in front of you, that’s disrespect.

i was coming down the highway, going a little faster than the people in the slow lane (because i was in the fast lane…that’s how these things work). the slow lane is going to end in about 400 metres, and the truck i am passing, cuts me off. not only did i have to hit the brakes, but i hit the horn. i resisted the urge to give him a glimpse of my beautiful middle finger.

i had plenty of room to pass this guy before his lane ended. Plenty. Did I mention I had PLENTY of room to pass??

i never would have even thought about passing had i not enough time before his lane ended. that’s the kind of person i am. the nice kind. that tries not to kill people.

and yet he cuts me off. the only reason i can think of for him doing this is because he just didn’t want me to pass him. never mind that i was going faster, and he had enough room to merge behind me.

you may wonder why i care so much, because i know that this is a little dramatic. 

besides the fact that my life was put in danger because of some dude’s ego?

it’s the fact that i exist. i matter. i’m a human being. i have intrinsic worth. and you think you’re so much more important than me because why? because you don’t want to be behind me in traffic?

that is not isolated to driving in our society. people no longer feel like they need to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. disrespect. not holding the door open for others if you’re perfectly able to and the other person might need it? disrespect. littering? not parking properly? peeing in public (an epidemic in my town apparently)? and a million other things. yuck. disrespect makes me sick to my stomach.

God made us all in His image. we owe it to Him and each other to have basic manners, treating each other like hey! i care about you because you’re a human being. going out of your way to make another person feel cared about is not a chore. it’s an honour. it makes you beautiful from the inside out. do it.