You can only control your reaction
When I got married in 2014, my wife and I were still going to Queens College so we decided to get a one-bedroom apartment near the campus. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t new, but it was ours and was convenient.
Looking back, the biggest challenge for me was other people. I also think it was why we were meant to be there for two years of our lives.
In Queens, everyone is tightly packed in. Many of the homes in our neighborhood share walls and many of the building are old. This has all the makings for an unpleasant living experience especially if people aren’t considerate.
People were sometimes rude. As a pedestrian in Queens, to think that you have the right of way at a stop sign is laughable. I can’t tell you how many times people run through stop signs, nearly hitting me and others patiently waiting at the side for them to stop. On top of that you have a double parking epidemic; people like to block others in and make it hard for others to get by, causing traffic jams.
The examples are endless.
At a certain point, I had an epiphany that getting mad or upset at any of these rude individuals wouldn’t benefit me in the slightest. Previously, I would have let these people’s actions bother me for a couple of hours. Seriously — it can be jarring to almost get hit by a car.
And the negative spiral of this ensues.
One person’s rudeness, can lead me to be upset, which can cause me to be rude to someone else. And I didn’t want that and never want that.
So I made a conscious decision to let it go and laugh. I knew that the rude people wouldn’t care less if I was upset and that it was only ruining my day. And I didn’t want to continue their negativity.
The moral of the story is: you can only control your reaction.
I am thankful for this lesson and living in the Queens area. I don’t think I could have had this appreciation without it.
Happy Tuesday
— Jake
Side notes: 1. Not everyone is Queens is rude. Only a few :) 2. There are times when you have to stick up for yourself and say something when people are assholes. As heroic as it is to know when to say nothing, it’s heroic to know when to speak up. In most of these cases however, I didn’t feel it would make a difference.
