This morning, as early as 7am, inhabitants of a real upper class neighborhood in the Washington DC metropolitan area were already being tested on both their "respect-each-other" skills and their "belly-button" attitude!
The escalator of the local Metro station was "off" for going down. Users were forced to walk it down. The scenario is a fast-pace, dark, narrow, extremely long and steep set of stairs, where a person is being rushed to make it down the tube!
Metro commuting etiquette require people wishing to stand still on moving escalators to remain on the right side of the stairs, allowing free pass on the left for those who wish to keep moving.
Distributors of two free daily newspapers cheerfully greet "good morning" and advise everyone about the broken escalator. Come freezing winter or melting summer, these men working with the public seem to be the only "alive" people in the whole system!
Today there were two individuals having obvious serious difficulty going down. One was physically limping and the other had an insecure elderly balance. Both were clearly unsure of their movements, needing to hold both sides of the hand rail and moving slower than the morning crowd.
One particular being, concerned that the scene was robbing them of probably a total of 15 seconds maximum, began yelling to give pass! With a body-barricade, the person immediately behind the individuals patiently held and blocked the crowd, saying that they were going to have to "hold their horses"! And then added that there could be no real hurry, if we were all only destined to die at the end of life anyway!
The ability for "tunnel vision" that also brings much success to more aggressive and focused beings, is not necessarily a rude or unaware characteristic of their behavior. It just often makes them simply alienated and the ones who remain silent, suffer the consequences...
Be kinder than necessary.
