Lighter Load: If you haven’t walked in someone else’s shoes, don’t judge them

Sometimes a person has been through something so horrific that it bleeds over onto everything they do — sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes it’s not — but it does affect how they act and react to certain situations. (THE TRUCKER: Barb Kampbell)

By BARB KAMPBELL
The Trucker Staff

9/21/2009

“Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that, who cares? He's a mile away and you've got his shoes.” — Billy Connelly

The above is a humorous spin on a serious subject.

One never knows what someone else has been through or what’s going on inside their mind.

What bothers me may not bother the guy sitting nearby. And what bothers the woman across the room may have zero impact on my psyche or mood. But that’s not to say I should discount her feelings or be put down for how I feel, either.

I interviewed Thomas O’Connell for this issue of The Trucker. We chatted for quite some time before he told me that he’d gone to school — after serving in war times and deciding he needed to “change his ways” — to get a BA in ministry. He told me this after he’d tearfully recounted a few war stories, including the death of his best friend in the Army, Grizz. His friend died right in front of his eyes after being mortally wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade that knocked everybody out who was in the same truck, but got Grizz the worst.

That’s some major life-changing stuff; the kind of thing you don’t just find out about somebody you just bump into and chat with for a few minutes.

You see, we just don’t know what is happening in someone else’s life. When someone gives you the finger in traffic that anger may not even really be at you. He or she may have had a fight with their spouse that morning. Or they may have just lost a job or any number of negative things.

While I was at the truck stop, before I met O’Connell, there was almost a physical altercation near the fuel desk. It seems a man was rather animated and angry because his truck had been sprayed with water by one of the truck stop employees.

According to the man who works at the truck stop, he’d asked the driver to move the truck and he didn’t. The workers were cleaning around the building and the pumps with a power washer.

It made me wonder why this man was so angry about having his truck sprayed. I mean, seriously, anytime you drive there are hundreds of things that can get on your truck. There had to be more to this story. And while he caused the truck stop employee to have a bad day, I’m guessing that his day was worse, so bad that it sent him into that depth of anger.

And that’s my point — we just never know what someone else has experienced, either that day, last week, or even when they were a child that could cause them to react to something we wouldn’t react the same way about.

Until you actually live and breathe another’s life you just don’t know. And since that’s how it is we ought to be more forgiving of those who cross our paths each day. We may judge them for their actions and attitude, but if we knew where their shoes had been we may be grateful we aren’t walking in them.

Life is difficult enough for the average person, but truckers have some added burdens because of time away from home, long hours, living out of a truck for weeks or months at a time, and so forth.

Remember to be as kind as you can to the man or woman in the next truck because their day might be improved by it and yours may be too.

Barb Kampbell of The Trucker staff can be reached for comment at barbkampbell@thetrucker.com.

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