Finding Happiness Through Proactive Passivity
When we go to the grocery store in California, we now line up down the aisles with 6 feet between shoppers. I’m not sure if it’s the same across the country, but it’s the new normal here. To get in line, you have to look down each aisle to see if the aisle/register is free before you line up and position your cart on a designated spot. This weekend a person jumped into an empty spot a few aisles down from me while I waited. They kept looking at me, above their mask, like they “got one over on me.”
Moments later, another person chose my aisle and started to fill the gap between my cart and the register. However, when they turned and saw me waiting in my proper spot - standing on my sticker - realizing they had cut in front of me, quickly apologized as if they expected I was annoyed by the situation. To their surprise, I said, “no worries, if that’s all you have, you can go ahead of me.”
This person was truly shocked — almost unwilling to accept my gesture of kindness. Once I explained that I was not in a hurry, and they only had a few items vs. my full cart, they quickly unloaded. They kept talking to me while checking out, repeating, “No one does that anymore.” They finished, paid, and were on their way before the ‘aisle over lane jumper’, who was still looking at me victoriously, was still in the process of checking out.
Instead of being upset about the lane jumper and allowing my blood pressure to rise, I chose to control my temper and response to the situation. These “choices” made me feel better about the entire experience and about myself. Allowing someone to go in front of you shouldn’t register as selfless or gracious, but as a society, we’ve become so selfish and defensive that we’ve lost sight of the joy we can get from helping one another.
The rest of the weekend, I challenged myself to see where I could be more proactively passive — like pulling into a busy gas station, waiting in line for support at Home Depot, opening the door for a stranger to let them enter a Starbucks ahead of me, or passing the dessert before serving myself … well, I may have failed that one.
Today, I even practiced my proactive passivity on my work Zoom call by giving others more time to speak and listen to them. I felt like I had more time to think about what to say, was more inclusive of my peer's ideas, and was able to speak more efficiently before responding. The seconds or collective few minutes I am giving up are giving back to me more joy and clarity and hopefully helping others in the process.
Hope you are all happy and healthy. Please, during this increased time of need, remember to give back to your community as you can.