Road Out Ahead

Near my house, there is an enormous park which attracts hundreds of people on the weekends. The park consists of a large, open stretch of grass along with several long trails that trek through miles of wooded area. Although most of these are dirt trails, there are also a few paved, one-way roads that wind through the hills. Over the previous two days, there had been heavy thunderstorms which had brought the threat of tornadoes. However, now that the sky had finally cleared on Sunday, the park, and particularly the trails, was even more crowded than usual.

Most of the traffic along the paved roads is composed of joggers and bikers, although cars routinely creep through. Today, I was one of the bikers. I usually ride a five-mile, paved loop that winds up and down the side a steep hill. Near the half-way point of my route is the path’s steepest section, which consists of three consecutive blind curves that bend to the left. As I rounded the last of these curves, and with two cars behind me patiently waiting to pass, I came across a line of traffic stopped behind a maintenance crew which had two trucks parked in the road. As I inched closer, I saw they were clearing a tree that had been knocked down by the storm and was blocking the road. By now, there was enough room for bikers to pass through, however, cars were still unable to get by and were forced simply stack up on this one-way road. I could see where the tree had been and the amount of saw dust indicated that the men had been chopping up and removing pieces of the tree for some time now.

As I passed through, I heard the crew men, while looking back at the line of cars, make sarcastic comments about the idiots who clearly didn’t understand that cars couldn’t get through. I was amazed by how stupid these men sounded. There had been no signs indicating the road was out, despite the fact that these men had clearly been here for several hours and had thus had been plenty of time to put up such sign. This was a one-way, winding road up the side of a hill and now they were mocking the people who they apparently felt were too ignorant to foresee this problem without any type of warning.

For the rest of my ride, as I thought about what I’d just witnessed, I began to see parallels between that scene and other situations in my life. Many of the facts were similar: there were two parties, one of which had superior information about a situation. However, the party with the additional information was judging the other party based on the information it didn’t have as opposed to the information that was available. How often do you get annoyed with someone who you feel “should have known better” when in reality there is no realistic reason they should have? How many times have you completed an assignment at work only to find out a superior forgot to tell you some key parameters had changed and that your assignment will require some rework, however, they are now frustrated that this will cause it to be late? Or even more simply, how often has a friend or significant other responded rudely to a question of yours only to then excuse her behavior because she is hungry or tired, as if you should have taken that into consideration before hand?

The fact that I notice this happening to me leads me to believe that I must I do it to others as well. I realize I need to make a conscious effort to be more tolerant when these situations occur and take the time to think about whether the other person had the information necessary to have acted differently. Most of the time they didn’t and my immediate impulse of blind rage is unjustified.