This week I had one of the strangest experiences of my life. This particular day I had a phone call scheduled with a friend at 6:45 pm. This phone call was pretty important and I did not want to miss it. Unfortunately due to the chaos associated with COVID-19 I was still at the store when 6:45 pm rolled around. You know the chaos of empty shelves, no TP, and so forth 🙂
I think people must have been a little cranky due to the craziness. I actually was not annoyed or irritated by the lines. I was actually kind of amused and ended up making my phone call while I was finishing shopping and checking out.
I went to self-checkout because I wanted to be able to continue my call while I checked out. While on the call a random man came up, didn’t say anything to me, and started checking my items out for me!!!!
What??!!!!!! Hello, boundaries!!!!!! What if I had some embarrassing items to check out?????
Now I personally didn’t think I was doing anything wrong because I was making progress with checking out and everyone else in front of me had taken a long time too, so in my head I thought “what is the big deal?”
Since this man never said anything to me (even when I tried to be polite and thank him), I can’t know exactly what he was thinking. I can only assume he was annoyed that I was on the phone while I was checking out during this national emergency.
I cannot control this man’s actions but I can control my thoughts. At first I was shocked! Second, I was a little humiliated, third, slightly annoyed, then angry, and finally, amused!
I ran through all of those emotions in about 1 minute.
Before I learned about thought work I probably would have stayed in the humiliated category for months.
Now I know I have a choice about how I feel and amusement feels so much better than humiliation.
Despite what I did (maybe I was wrong and inconsiderate, who knows, my apologies to everyone who thinks that) I can still feel peace in my life about this virus and how people are reacting to it by carefully monitoring my thoughts and choosing how I want to feel.
I’m sorry for this man if he was feeling angry or annoyed because I know those emotions don’t feel good. But as for me, I’m sticking with amusement. I’m still laughing about the experience!
