BRINGING IT TO BEAR
All we need is just a little patience

Unfortunately, a descent from Yosemite's high wilderness country returned us to the face-paced hubbub of everyday life. As we raced down the freeway back towards San Francisco, acres of pavement, millions of people, and densely packed development soon replaced Yosemite's crystal-clear streams and giant sequoias. In order for all of these people to co-exist in such a small space, certain rules--both written and unwritten--must be followed. Put another way, each of us has something of an obligation to complete small, society-enhancing tasks well. But as the city grew closer, I was overcome with the realization that most Americans lack the ambition to do these small tasks well.

What tasks am I talking about? Most are so brainlessly obvious that I wonder why people don't do them out of sheer habit. For example, when the light turns green, GO! It's simple, really: step on the gas (the pedal on the right), smoothly accelerate, and get the hell on with your life. But don't do it for yourself. After all, you may not be the kind of self-actualized person who is comfortable with getting on with your life. But dammit, do it for the dozen other drivers who are waiting behind you. They might not be self-actualized people either, but it's nice to give them the benefit of the doubt.

In a similar vein, don't dawdle along at fifty-seven miles per hour in the left lane. Get off your cell phone. Stop applying mascara, changing your baby, or snarfing down that greasy burger. Then look in your rearview mirror and realize that you are single-handedly causing a major traffic catastrophe. If I am ever appointed to be the head of the Department of Motor Vehicles, I would mandate that tattooing "Drive on the Right, Pass on the Left" be a prerequisite for anyone wishing to possess a driver's license.

I see this kind of behavior all the time. People will wait in line at the ATM for ten minutes, blankly staring into space, and only when they actually reach the ATM will they begin the five-minute process of fumbling around in their wallets for their card. Or an overweight family of four will stand in line at McDonald's, engaged in a scintillating conversation on the latest innovations in plastic restaurant furniture. Only when they arrive at the cashier will they even give the first thought to what fat-laden foods they wish to shove into their maws, even though the giant neon menu board has been staring them in the face for the past fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, the people in line behind them, who want nothing more than to order their food and get on with things, quickly become homicidal with rage.

I will be the first person to admit that our society could benefit from an overall increase in patience. We all suffer from varying degrees of self-importance and a little patience would go a long way towards making our hectic lives a bit more tolerable. But like it or not, we live in a society that puts a premium on speed and convenience. Technology has done wonders to enhance these premiums. But for all our technological advances, we have yet to hit upon improvements in the human ability to be aware of one's surroundings, or to increase the overall notion that we share our society with a quarter-billion other people who all want the same things we want. As an almost involuntary backlash, we engage in inane behavior that serves only to devalue the speed and convenience that we supposedly hold so dear. We gum up the works by not using that extra ounce of brainpower to do small things well.

In my more cynical, rage-filled moments when I am stuck behind the slowpokes in the left lane, I wish that some government would institute terrible, nasty punishments (public shaming comes to mind) for those who won't (notice how I don't say "can't") do small, society-enhancing tasks well. Yet in my calmer moments, I understand the larger implications: the slowpoke in the left lane perhaps only marginally lengthens the commutes of a hundred other people. Hardly significant in the long run. But the inability of that person to understand how his or her actions affect those hundred other people may indeed become significant as our society becomes increasingly interconnected. Doing small tasks well--or our collective inability to do them well--may cause our current experiment in social interconnectedness to succeed or fail.

However, of this much I am certain: if being eaten by a hungry bear was the alternative, we'd all find a way to do the small things right.