The cycle of Goodness

I was driving down to work on a Monday morning at a steady pace hoping to make it on time. It was a busy day by many standards, the construction of the new Metro project in the city had taken away fifty percent of the roads. The other half was filled with annoyed bikers, cars and buses. An odd rickshaw would overtake to jump into the next gap between the cars, every time they idled.

Just then the song changed to a reggae number and I had a fleeting thought of potheads. As the drums and the guitar got groovy I was convinced that potheads were some of the most peaceful people on the planet; and then...it happened.

At a junction, a taxi dives right into the space between the cars as we inched along. At first it was shock, I replayed this scene in my head several times until I saw a duck quacking where my car stood. Anger took over, I had to catch up with this evil taxi and put him behind me. Alas I was only a dumb, zero - street smart IT professional, I couldn’t get out and shout at the driver could I? How could I possibly hold up the traffic for a few minutes while I had a nasty conversation with the Taxi driver, it was unthinkable. So I honked and expected to awaken the world to my fury over this injustice. The honk must have felt like a rain drop on dry hump of a rhino, nothing happened except for some glares.

When the traffic moved I shoved and pushed my car into the other lanes desperate to overtake this anarchist taxi driver. I was honked at with equal fervour which I ignored and continued pushing people out of the way until I overtook the Taxi. I sighed with relief and only when the surroundings began to grow on me did I realise a number of dirty looks from the vehicles near me. I had managed to annoy at least 20 other people on the road. Not bad for a Monday morning; I will leave it to your imagination just how the rest of my day went from there.

The next day just as I was exiting the driveway, a car braked to let me pass. I immediately felt gratitude as the gentleman waved at me to go ahead. After all in a country of 6 billion, good deeds like this rarely occurred. The good deed had left an imprint, so I did the same to a number of other cars on the road. Where possible I stopped to let the children cross and slowed down for the cars join the traffic, I even managed to appraise some good looking women and suddenly the drive did not feel so tiring anymore. I felt no anger, no irritation and saw the world a little differently today. I believed that we are all inherently good inside and all of us are potentially great hippy potheads.

I had managed to pass on a single kind act of goodness and hopefully our potential potheads passed it on until it became an avalanche of goodness that flooded the world.