busybee fluffy rambles

With the current state of the world, everyone is on edge and quick to anger. Approach situations from a perspective of kindness. You never know what someone else is going through at the time, and responding with a default of anger to what seems like a personal slight is only going to make things worse.

Lots of people around you are struggling with mental health, anxiety, loss, grief, and more. If someone does something thoughtless, it’s best to just let it go. If it’s egregious enough to require correction, start out by asking them if they understand what they were supposed to do (in a kind way) rather than assuming that they were purposefully being malicious. They almost certainly weren’t doing it on purpose, and even if they were, is it really worth getting into a fight over it?

It’s also worth remembering that other people aren’t necessarily in a space for the same reason as you, and they might be inexperienced with the use of that space. Something that seems obvious and straightforward to you might be a confusing mess to other people.

And the inverse also applies; if you’re the one who has caused other people to blow up at you, regardless of intention, you don’t know what they’ve been going through either, or how many microaggressions may have led to them boiling over.

tl;dr: Assume good faith in others.

well I just had a lousy experience that has me depressed and frustrated and withdrawn and just hating everyone around me

My therapist was trying to convince me to come out to an art gallery opening on Vashon Island and I wasn’t feeling up to it but I decided I was wallowing and I should get out and do something nice.

So I start driving to the ferry, and I follow the GPS instructions for getting there, and there’s a long line of cars so I go a few blocks up to try to not cut into the line, and I guess I didn’t go far up enough because when I got in line, the person who pulled up behind me ran up to my window and started yelling at me for cutting in line, and acted like I was being a jerk on purpose. And then when I didn’t immediately get out of the line (which runs parallel to a busy street and it’s difficult to tell when it’s safe to pull out) she ran up to the person in front of me and told him what I’d done and then he started yelling at me too.

This was too much for me and I had a meltdown and had to head home.

And now I just want to wallow some more.

From her point of view it probably did seem that I’d cut in line and I understand her being upset but I didn’t know, and if I’d been told nicely that “hey the line starts up at such-and-such street” and not gotten other people mad at me too, things would have gone very differently. But now I just like. never want to take the ferry every again because now I"m worried I’ll get people mad at me again.

It sure would be great if people didn’t assume malicious intent. I absolutely wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, I was just confused about where to go while having a bad mental health day already. Being yelled at and berated for an honest mistake, by multiple people who immediately assumed I was out to be a jerk, is not what I’d call a good time.

The worst part of this is that the people who yelled at me probably feel like victorious defenders of justice, and they’ll never know the actual end result of their actions.