it was a simple trip to local grocery store y'day - in fact, not even necessary - just that my son wanted to try out his newly acquired driving skill - now endorsed by 'learning permit' :-)
we both picked up one item of same type and noticed that the two queues at the checkout counters were looking similar - hard to guess which one will get us back to the car faster - so, it just occurred to me - let's both try separately and then later join whoever gets first to the clerk - he hesitated at first thinking 'how will others think?' - people usually do not like to see the system being 'played' with ...
i tried giving it a positive spin - i explained - look at it this way .. "we are giving opportunity to either your queue or mine (by those who join behind you or me after this point) - to feel momentarily happy that their wait has just been shortened - since we both will be checking out the items together at one go - and I guess he did not have counter-argument or choice but to let me be the 'weird' shopper
and people did join behind both of us in no while ... and then eventually, it appeared his turn to be served by the clerk will be faster ... feeling happy that i can shorten someone's wait time (those behind me) I sneaked next to my son ...
guess what happened? maybe i was too busy communicating with my son (grinning at him) or I did not 'ask' with proper gestures/nods to lady behind him or whatever happened - she did not seem to be happy :(
the perception that i had now increased her wait time OR i had 'jumped the queue' OR we 'gamed' the system was apparent from her mumbling comments - i politely explained her that we both had same items (and just 2 in total) - but we are OK if she wants to go ahead of us - and probably that did solace her and she stood patiently for her turn eventually :-)
it made me ponder - maybe things that make us 'unhappy' are just our temporary 'perceptions' where we are so caught up that we fail to easily see the 'bright side' or the 'big picture'?
let's hope and pray everyone gets to see the light - and we can 'increase' the total global happiness
ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः
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