Put Self In the Other's Place

Sometimes, when I turn left at a traffic light with a lead signal, the right-turnoff lane has a car in it that is just itching to turn, even though it still has a red light (in Florida, right turns on red, after first stopping, are generally legal). When the street that both of us turning on has one lane available, that car simply has to wait. But when there are two lanes, the car turning left is supposed to take the left-most lane and the car turning right can take the right lane. But often, a car turning left in this situation may need to quickly get into the right-hand land. This happens so often that, when I am in the position of the car at the red light wanting to turn right, I habitually wait for all of the cars with the lead to finish turning left. Perhaps in a strict legal sense, the lane I would directly turn on to is available to me. But regardless of the law, in ambiguous situations like this, the best policy is for me to put myself into the place of the other driver and ask myself how I would then like to treated. Simply employing a little courtesy and offering to yield to others can not only defuse frustration and road rage on the part of those other drivers: it can prevent accidents! And it will put myself into a more reasonable, patient mindset as well.

Over the course of a day, we find ourselves in many different types of interactions with others. Each interaction has a type of etiquette that, if not followed, has the potential to offend someone. And since people come from all walks of life and different cultural backgrounds, sometimes it’s not easy to figure out the best course of action in different situations. Once again, when this happens, like in my previous traffic example, the best policy is to just put ourselves in the place of the other and then act according to how we would like to be treated. I believe that simple courtesy is a universally understood and appreciated commodity. Exercising it would go a lot longer toward furthering the interests of world peace than marching up and down a street carrying a protest sign.

And when someone comes up with complaints and accusations against us, we naturally like to react automatically in a defensive and assertive manner. Without giving up that right to defend ourselves, may I suggest throwing into that “automatic reaction” mix the idea of trying to see things through the other guy’s eyes as well?