A young woman was waiting for her flight to board at a large airport. She was informed that the plane she would be traveling on would be delayed by about an hour. The elegant lady, a little annoyed, bought a magazine, a packet of biscuits and a bottle of water to pass the time. She sat as comfortably as she could, and quietly began to read, ready to have a good time of rest.
As he flipped through his magazine, a young man sat next to him and began to read a newspaper. Unexpectedly, the lady watched as that boy, without saying a word, stretched out his hand, grabbed the package of cookies, opened it and began to eat them, one by one, nonchalantly.
The woman was annoyed by this, she did not want to be rude, but neither did she want to let that situation pass or pretend that nothing had happened; So, with an exaggerated gesture, she took the package and took out a biscuit, displayed it in front of the young man, and ate it staring into his eyes.
In response, the young man took another cookie and looking at her put it in his mouth and smiled. The lady already angry, took a new cookie and, with ostensible signs of annoyance, returned to eat another, keeping her eyes on the boy again. The dialogue of looks and smiles continued between biscuit and biscuit.
The lady became more and more irritated, and the boy more and more smiling.
Finally, the lady realized that only the last cookie was left in the package. “He can’t be so shameless,” she thought as she looked alternately at the young man and the packet of cookies.
The young man calmly reached out, took the last biscuit, and very gently, broke it exactly in half. So, with a loving gesture, he offered half of the last cookie to his bankmate.
“Thank you!” – said the woman taking rudely that half. “You’re welcome,” replied the young man, smiling softly as he ate his half.
Well, this was already too much…
She was very angry!
In a fit of rage, she grabbed her things and shot out into the departure lounge and thought, “How insolent, how rude, how human being of our world!” Still looking at the young man with resentment, her mouth felt parched from the disgust that this situation had caused her.
When she sat down in her seat on the plane, she opened her bag to pull out the water bottle and was totally shocked when she found, inside her bag, her package of cookies intact!!!
She felt so bad!
She didn’t understand how she could have been wrong… She had forgotten that she kept his packet of cookies in his purse.
The man had shared his cookies with her without any problem, without rancor, without explanations of any kind… … while she had gotten so angry, thinking she had to share her cookies with him…. And now she had no chance to explain himself or apologize…
How many times our prejudices, our hasty decisions make us mistakenly value people and make the worst mistakes. How many times the distrust, already installed in us, makes us judge, unfairly, people and situations, and without even having to, we pigeonhole them in preconceived ideas, often so far from the reality that is presented.
Thus, by not using our capacity for self-criticism and observation, we lose the natural grace to share and face situations, making distrust and concern grow in us. We fret over events that are not real, that we may never get to contemplate, and we torment ourselves with problems that may never happen.
An old proverb goes… Fighting, judging ahead of time and getting upset is never achieved enough, but being fair, yielding and observing others with a simple share of serenity, you get more than you expect.
There are things we can never get back…
A stone …….after having thrown it..
A word…. .. after having said it!
The time… … when it has already passed!
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
