A man watches anger spread at a broken post office machine and chooses to stay calm instead of joining the frustration. He describes noticing these moments daily and deliberately picking peace over groupthink, inviting you to do the same.
Good morning everyone. Here is your moment of yes. Well, yesterday I had to go to the post office to send a few things and the line was really long. People were, you could tell, being impatient. One of the machines wasn't working, so there was a real backup of people who had been waiting there for a while. So after I had been there for already about 15 minutes, one guy got upset, started cussing at the teller. A customer started cussing at him. It was a really tense situation. I was in the back of the line waiting for my package to be picked up. And so I caught myself sort of in that moment of, you know, which direction do you go with your emotions? Do you kind of jump on the bandwagon of kind of anger and frustration that everyone's feeling, kind of that group thought, that groupthink mentality? Or there's a choice to sort of be a calming influence or a calming presence. In this case, I chose to be sort of a calming presence. Not so much with doing anything as much as just my mental sort of approach to how I was thinking about the situation. Was I being overly judgmental? Was I getting wrapped up into it? Or was I just sort of allowing my own calming presence and calm thoughts to be a part of the environment? And so I catch myself sort of numerous times during the day having to make that choice. Are you going to sort of jump into the drama? Are you going to sort of be a calming influence? Sometimes I do really well, other times not so much. And so it becomes a great exercise of, do you allow yourself to get sucked in, or can you take a step out actually and sort of observe the situation and make a choice that is hopefully positive and calming? So as you go out through your day today, if you find yourself in that situation or situations, even if it's just one-on-one, with a loved one, what are you going to choose to do? How are you going to choose to respond? Hopefully you'll choose the calm response, and then if you don't, you can choose it next time. That's your moment of yes for today. Have a wonderful day.
