Wanting to slap some people is almost a daily occurrence for me but I need to balance that energy against what I feel is a requirement for each of us to have patience and kindness.
This becomes harder with age because the shine has slowly come off the apple when it comes to human beings. Our idealism has been burned off one incident at a time over our lifetime and we often end up not suffering fools gladly.
The trick is to protect oneself while having empathy for people who have less defenses than we do. It means identifying risk and benefit and making decisions sometimes on a split second basis.
Living in a large city exposes you to all kinds of characters and today many of them have completely dropped all attempts at public civility. On the other hand there are pearls out there that make it up for the others.
If we grew up thinking that everyone was nice, that myth went up in smoke with experience and time. However, the defenses we developed as a consequence need to be used judiciously and sparingly.
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