TOD 09.04.07

The other day I was walking between some cars at a strip mall, and I stepped out in front of a bicyclist without looking. He wasn’t all that close, and so I quickly crossed to get out of his way and apologized. He said nothing, which immediately made me think that I hadn’t really done anything wrong. But neither had he. Truly, neither of us was at fault, but only I apologized.

It’s like when I wait for the elevator. If I forget to leave space enough for people to get out, I apologize to them, and usually they do to me as well. And I guess I’ve just developed this habit in all sorts of similar settings. My impulse to apologize is almost instantaneous. And when everyone has this impulse, we all seem to come away from the encounter smiling and not irritated, and not second-guessing who really was right or wrong. At the risk of exaggerating, it seems like this attitude makes everything in society function more smoothly.

Now if I can just get myself to be as consistently decent to the one person I love most: my wife.