A good lesson

How often do you let other people's nonsense change your mood? Do you let a nagging partner, bad driver, rude waiter, curt boss, or an insensitive employee ruin your day? However, the mark of a successful person is how quickly one can get back their focus on what's important.

David J. Pollay explains his story in this way....

Sixteen years ago I learned this lesson. I learned it in the back of a New York City taxi cab. Here's what happened. I hopped in a taxi, and we took off for Grand Central Station. We were driving in the right lane when, all of a sudden, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his breaks, skidded, and missed the other car's back end by just inches!

The driver of the other car, the guy who almost caused a big accident, whipped his head around and he started yelling bad words at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean...he was friendly. So, I said, 'Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!'

And this is when my taxi driver told me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.'


'Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it. And if you let them, they'll dump it on you. When someone wants to dump on you, don't take it personally. You just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. You'll be happy you did.'

I started thinking, how much Garbage of my own do I carry? and how often do I let other Garbage Trucks run right over me? And how often do I take their garbage and spread it to other people: at work, at home, on the streets?

How often we let our frustrations in relationships to cloud the possibilities to better them. Nagging for things that are trivial and spoiling a whole day, month or years. Bickering all the time to prove ourselves right when all that we achieve in the process is to let everyone know how desperate we are to appear that we are in control. How many times we have lost control in our attempts to appear in control. How many times have we used insults to convey our anger at our partners when all we should have done was to control our tongues to prevent further damage.

How often we let our incompetence at work blind us and become insecure of other people's capabilities, thwarting them, complaining and whining about how they don't do their jobs properly, when in reality it is we who are running scared. So many times we lie to prevent our images from getting tarnished when all we accomplish is to taint it forever when the truth comes out.

So much of my own trash to lug around. Why should I carry and spread other people's garbage.

It was that day I said, 'I'm not going to do it anymore. I will try not dump my own trash on other people and I will definitely not become a garbage truck to lug around other peoples' garbage too!'

Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. Love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't. Believe that everything happens for a reason.