Points2Ponder

  "NOT how the bumper is supposed to look!"

                        Points2Ponder

                                                       By Alan P. Scaglone

 You know how you never consider the view from outside, looking in?

We always look from our vantage point and see the world how it affects us!

Points2Ponder  When’s the last time you considered how your actions affect others?

So my wife and I were doing some shopping for the grandkids on Labor Day—is there any other kind, at this point?

We see something for one of them, and we say “Christmas is coming—we’ll put it away until then!”
But we both know… that present will not make to HoHoHoLand—nope, it will be given to them long before that.
But that’s the joy of being a grandparent—we get love on them and spoil ‘em and make them feel like they are the king of the world.
And… I love every minute of it.
So…
We are leaving a parking lot, crossing the intersection, and someone was waving us on—STOP!
WARNING!!!
You know it’s about to get bad because… every time someone else tells you it’s okay to cross an intersection—do NOT believe them!
Sure enough!
We started to cross—but we met another car, already in the intersection.
It was a young man, about 20 years old, on his way to his parents’ house—it was HIS holiday too!
But… our action—or inaction—had now affected his holiday…and his life.
We all got out—everyone was okay.
Our van—it normally is NOT missing the bumper—was drivable, so we moved it out of the intersection.
In the process of trying NOT to hit us, the other driver had veered, hit us anyway and… run into a traffic sign.
His Toyota was not moving.
And even if it could—that right tire was bent in at the axle—he wasn’t driving that car anywhere any time soon.
It was 2pm on a holiday—at a busy intersection—NOT what we planned for our afternoon—NOT what he planned either.
The cops came, the info was exchanged, the two truck arrived, and so did this young man’s father.
I heard them discussing what the boy was going to do without a car?
He was a student with a part time job, just running home to change, eat with his parents and, head to his job.
None of that was happening today.
I walked toward them, and I said “Are you okay?”
He smiled and said he was.
I then said “Sorry to mess up your holiday!”
And he said, “No worries—just glad you and your wife are not hurt!”
And I felt so incredibly bad—I had heard what he and his father were saying about how this was going to affect his life.
And yet—he was concerned about us?
Just sat inside my soul for a couple of days—our action, even though it was unintentional—had dramatically changed this boy’s daily life.
And it just hit me…
We spend so much of our lives looking outward, judging, assessing, blaming others for what they did to US!
But how often do we take the time to ask the question “How did I affect someone else by doing what I just did?”
Just made me so aware of other moments in my life when… I may have affected someone else, intentionally or inadvertently, but still…affected their life.
And it made me want to call a few people and just say humbly, quietly, “I’m Sorry!”

I’m Just… Reflecting on -- Life!

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!  We made it EASY TO COMMENT!

SELECT the link BELOW!   YOU can send Alan an email!