Fear Not OF v2

[Ruffian]

   I had stopped at the grocery store on my way home from work last Thursday. As I was driving on the roadway leading out of the parking lot, I saw a homeless man on the roadside. He was riding one of those adult tricycles which was laden with all his possessions. The front wheel protruded maybe two feet onto the roadway, and he was just sitting there.


  I reacted immediately: how dare he, he is impinging on my right of way, it's not safe, yada yada yada. But the reaction was over almost as soon as it had begun. And it was replaced with the realization that I had zero compassion for this fellow human being, who was obviously suffering horribly.

  Normally a reaction of this sort reaches a higher level of intensity, lasts longer, and has more swearing. The fact that it was so short, less intense, and did a total 180 in such a short amount of time (maybe less than a minute) well, I'm going to give OF credit for that. (As I was trying to gauge the intensity level for this report, I was like...anger?  Nope. Intense irritation?  No, the tone was all wrong.  It was then that I realized... I had had a temper tantrum!)

  Friday morning, having had a good night's sleep, the thought popped into my head that this was all about power/powerlessness. I'll be exploring this further...