Not gonna go into detail at this time, but words to live by, i am reminded, are have compassion first, always, for everyone. I just got schooled, big time.

It's been a few days. I was away and not thinking about blogging.

I have a good reason to, now, though.

If you are my Facebook friend, you may have seen the title of this blog post on my FB page... here is where I will go into said detail.

I was on a bus yesterday evening/last night, sitting next to a very kinetic young man, who, at the beginning of the ride, was getting down hard to the music to which he was listening. It was pretty cute, but I was trying to take a nap and he kept bumping into me with his seat dancing. I asked him if he would please stop bumping into me so I could sleep. He got a majorly entitled attitude with me and then began to do things to annoy me on purpose. I've done a lot of personal work to be able to just ignore most annoyances, but not all of them.

Finally, he quit dancing and went to sleep. I, however, was already awake from the prior irritation. So I listened to my music, none of it dance music, and just looked at the scenery. He slept a long time, and woke when we got to our rest stop so he could go grab some food. He was a little late getting back and I had to go tell the bus driver to please not leave without him. That would have sucked. (I promise I am getting to my point.)

He ate his dinner as the bus got underway again. Then his phone rang. He had a tearful conversation (I gave him kleenex) with whoever was on the other end. When he finally finished talking on the phone, I gave him another kleenex and asked if he was all right.

Come to find out he had just landed from a tour of duty in Iraq (special dispensation; he was still serving) because his parents and young son were in a car accident... they were hit by a BUS!!! His son sustained a broken arm and his father was in critical condition on the operating table.

My heart broke when I heard his story and it dawned on me he must have needed that music as an escape. Now of course I had no way of knowing any of this at first, which is why I realize that compassion MUST be one of the major filters through which I view my fellow humans, all the time, no matter who.

This will, of course, take some practice, but it is so worth it to me to be able to not only grow in that way, but to move heart first through the world. I usually do a version of this anyway, but it has not been enough and I need to step it the fuck up.

Life is a great teacher.

Sat nam
Namaste
Shalom