Four [Random] Thoughts Vol. 7 — How to be Nicer to Others on the Streets.
1 How to be Chilango
I live in a city with one of the highest population density in the world, crowded, beautiful, diverse, fun, and chaotic.
Welcome to Mexico City!
To do my tiny part, adopt a healthier lifestyle, and enjoy while I do it; I decided to sell my car, and got myself a new bike.
This is not the first time I bike in the city, and I'm used to the nasty, angry drivers. Last Friday, for instance, a taxi driver, at 7am and almost no traffic, cut me off bad; and I avoided being hit by mere inches. He saw me, our eyes met, and I noticed the malice in his eyes.
I cursed him silently, and loudly, too.
Anyway, that's life for bikers here, it's always been like this on Mexico City's streets. A freaking asphalt jungle.
What happens on the bike lanes, though, it's a new level of nasty. Mexico City now sports several bike lanes or shared pedestrian-bike lanes. There, I witness our "chilango culture" developing, or rather degrading, in real time:
- Groups of two or more people walking or biking shoulder to shoulder, using all possible space.
- People sitting, or vendors installing their street stalls; blocking lanes and areas needed by others. And getting mad when asked to move.
- On street crossings, drivers get out of the street; block the bike lane, and then stop to check if they can cross, or join traffic. This is not surprising, tho, most drivers here are aggressive as hell.
I won't depress you with more examples. Is there anything we can do? How do we adopt these awful attitudes so fast? I kid you not, some of these bike lanes have less than one year, and it is harder to bike on them, than when no bike lane existed. E.g. Av. Revolución in the afternoon, or at night.
2 Positive Intent
If someone is doing something wrong, speak up. When they right the wrong, say thanks. Assuming positive intent, we promote empathy and foster a better street culture. Or so I hope.
E.g., I ring my bell, and people blocking the bike lane move and let me pass. As I'm passing them, I say 'thank you!'. It isn't easy for me, by the tenth time in one block, I'd rather kick someone and tell them how much they not sharing the road; sucks. But I refrain, and keep thanking them.
I don't know how they ended up occupying both lanes; maybe they were so into their conversation; that didn't realize they share the road with bikers; maybe an angry dog, or a robber scared them; and they decided to walk on the bike lane instead of on the larger — and pedestrian-only — sidewalk.
Maybe.
3 The Hard Thing about Hard Things
I've been listening to Ben Horowitz's book The Hard Thing about Hard Things, and I highly recommend it to anyone in the startup world, those running their own businesses, or to you who are curious about how the culture, policies, and other treats of the company you work for; evolved.
Among the many learnings, and clear analysis of the hard things CEOs face, this one:
Sometimes an organization doesn’t need a solution; it just needs clarity.
- Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things
has made me conscious about the things I don't explain or say, both in work or personal settings, and how easy life gets once you state things clearly.
4 Be Safe Online
With so many online services, social media, communications, and fun tech in our lives, it is important that we protect our privacy, and keep our data secure. I recommend to follow these simple steps:
(a) Create strong — different — passwords for every account. Use long series of random words, or a password generator to create complex, 15-characters or more, passwords.
Do not write the passwords down, or save them in a file, or email.
(b) Activate 2-step authentication, if available. Most popular online services, support this type of authentication. Like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Google Authenticator is a convenient way to handle the 2-step authentication for some services. I use it for Google, Evernote, and LastPass.
That's it!
Bonus: you have several accounts, and remembering all those passwords will be challenging. Use a password manager! I use Chrome password manager, and LastPass. In the before time, I used 1Password.
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