On more than one occasion I’ve judged someone’s actions before realizing they were going through something difficult in their life. On many occasions, actually.

Case in point

Earlier this week I was driving on one of Atlanta’s not-overly-congested-at-all highways when I needed to merge over to the right lane. Traffic was bad (weird, right?) so I was waiting for my opportunity.

Before I continue, you have to know something about me: I’m a turn signal guy. That’s right, I love turn signals, and I tend to get bent out of shape when people don’t use their signals. I’m not ashamed to admit that, a few times, without thinking, I have used my turn signal to pull out of my driveway. Just a few times, but it’s happened.

So I waited until I had an opening to the right and I made my move. My blinker had been on for a minute or so, and no one should have been surprised this was happening. The car that I was pulling in front of was probably four cars back, clearly not aware that so much space had been opened up between them and the car in front of them.

As I started to pull to the right, I saw in my rear view mirror that the guy I was pulling in front of had realized what was happening, and aggressively hammered the gas and sped up to try and deny my entrance into the lane. Mind you, the car in front of him was completely stopped in traffic. He had no motivation other than to deny me the move into his lane. But I was already halfway in, so we both knew he’d never get there.

From the honking and bird-flicking, you would have thought we were in New York. But not (gasp) our polite, southern city! I can’t tell you how angry this guy was. For not being one car ahead of where he was, in stopped traffic. We were making direct eye-contact, with my giving him the “thank-you wave” and him giving me the “I want to kill you and your family finger”.

I have to admit, I was pretty angry that someone would be so irate about a situation that could have been a model for the right way to merge into another lane. I did everything by the book, and he was not harmed in any way.

He was clearly having a bad day.

I started to think about what could possibly make someone that angry. Re-thinking my moves, I realized that it couldn’t possibly be what I did. Not really. He must have some things going on his life that have really upset him. Or he had a life up until that point of disappointment or trauma. Or something. Whatever it was, I would have no way of knowing, but I was pretty sure my Leaf invasion into his lane couldn’t possibly be what upset him so much. Even if he was giving me the piercing stare of a serial killer (I could feel it from behind me).

And so I decided to give him grace. To try to remember that he was probably dealing with something hard in his life. Or maybe he was just unhappy inside because of his past, but whatever the reason, here’s what we know: he isn’t a happy person, and that’s a bummer for him. And maybe if more people gave him grace, he’d stop acting like a screaming, maniacal a-hole to people while driving home from work.

Maybe.

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