He was yelling, and I didn’t know why

A few years ago, I was driving down the center lane of a three-lane road in town.  Whenever I’m stopped at red lights, I often look around the area, just to see what’s going on.  Occasionally, I’ll sneak a peak at the other drivers, just to see who I’m traveling with.

At one particular red light, I looked to my left and the guy driving the car next to me immediately caught my eye.  He was alone, but he was forcefully spitting out words and tightly gripping the steering wheel.  His face was set on edge as he spoke, and his body was tense.  However, it didn’t appear that he was mad at anyone or another car in the vicinity.  He was definitely yelling, but what he was saying couldn’t be heard from where I was in my vehicle.

We were both heading the same direction in a mass of other vehicles, so it wasn’t all that difficult to stay near him for a block or two.  His behavior didn’t change, and I began to imagine different scenarios that would cause a person to behave this way.

My first thought was that he was on the phone and was chewing someone out.  That situation certainly fit his behavior.  And if that was the case, I feel bad for whoever was on the other end of that phone call!

But then I begin to think of other situations – maybe he was just singing along with some really angry music, perhaps he’s in a play and he was rehearsing lines for an unbearable character, or possibly he felt stuck in life and just needed to vent when he thought no one was looking or could hear.

The truth is, I had no idea what he was going through or why he was acting the way he was.  I was just another person in a different car that got a 30-second glance into his life.  And I don’t think I was getting his life’s highlight reel, either.

If I had simply gone with my first assumption – that he was angrily chewing someone out – I could imagine a whole backstory to judge him for the time I witnessed his actions.  If we then ended up at the same place, how would I treat him?  Or…how would I describe him to someone else?  “Hey.  You wouldn’t believe the crazy angry guy I saw driving today.  He was giving somebody the business, let me tell you!”

Beyond not assuming someone’s story or whatever battle they are internally fighting, the whole situation brought to mind something that Paul wrote to the believers in a town called Colossae:

Colossians 4:5-6
Act wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time.  Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.

Would it be wise of me to assume the guy next to me is an angry jerk that had no issue with chewing someone out?  Honestly, I didn’t have enough information to make that kind of assumption.

But if I never saw him again (and as far as I know, we’ve never met), what harm is there in making up backstories and then playing out those situations in my mind? 

The potential for harm wouldn’t be isolated to the guy who never noticed me observing him.  Instead, it’s bigger than that.  I’d be setting my mind on a negative path where I am morally superior to him, and I would be ready to gossip about him and my made-up story to others.  When I step back from doing so, it’s clear that this line of thinking is not making the most of the time I have.  Embellishing on a 30-second snippet of his life would not help my speech to always be gracious to the other people I would be talking to that day. 

Imagine again, that I snapped a 30-second video of his behavior and posted it for the world to see.  With my imagined-story framing, he could be insta-famous for just having a bad moment on a bad day.

So let’s be careful with what we imagine about others, especially if we have very little information to go on.  Making rash assumptions will prevent us from knowing how you should answer each person or handle each situation.

Keep Pressing,
Ken