The Left Turn

I rode my motorcycle to office everyday and about 500 m from my house there is a stop light, from where I take a left turn everyday. Not once I have encountered any traffic on this left turn and I have never thought about the turn even once before that fateful Tuesday.

It was a day just like other, birds were chirping, the sun was shining and everything was just right (trying to be poetic). I started my motorcycle and reached the stop light and took the left turn, as I turned a beggar came out of nowhere and I almost hit him. My motorcycle has good brakes so I just stopped short of bumping into the guy. I immediately apologized to the guy, but instead of accepting my apology he cursed me and just walked by. The incident left me disturbed for about 30 min as I thought the guy was unfair and he shouldn't have abused me.

A month passed and I went to office everyday without incidence, one day my friend asked me if I could give him a ride on my motorcycle. I obliged and when we took the left turn from the stoplight the beggar who I almost hit a month ago again came out of nowhere and again I almost hit him. Like the last time the guy abused me and started walking away, this time I could not control myself and cursed back at him, he kept on walking without even looking back. The whole incident left me rattled and I couldn't concentrate on one thing at work, I just kept on cursing the guy for a whole day in my mind.

After that day I made a promise to myself that I will go very slowly on the turn and be very careful. Life was going smoothly and my girlfriend came from out of town to spend the weekend with me. One evening we decided to go to a new club in town and I was really looking forward to night of song and dance.

That fateful evening when I was riding with my girlfriend, on the same left turn the beggar came right in front of my bike and I had to screech to a halt to stop the bike from crashing into him. True to his nature he abused me, this time I wasn't going to let him go, how dare he abuse me in front of my girlfriend. I got down from my bike and pushed him to the ground and abused him, also gave him some sound advise and preached some traffic rules.

My girlfriend thought that I was an animal and didn't speak to me the whole evening... goes without saying the night of song and dance was a total disaster. The incident with the beggar left me uncomfortable and angry for a week.

Introspection

I replayed all the three incidents in my mind over and over again, trying to analyze my behavior. After a lot of introspection I realized that the sequence of events - reaction - consequences, were for me to live with.

The event was same each time, me riding the bike and almost hitting the beggar and the guy abusing me.

Reactions were different and I wondered why? After considerable thought I understood why, the first time I was alone so I didn't care much when the guy abused me.

Second time I was with my friend and my reaction was a little strong, because how dare the beggar abuse me in front of my friend, I have an Image to protect.

My third reaction was the strongest, I couldn't handle the abuse when my girlfriend was with me, my Image would have shattered if I didn't do something drastic to protect it.

So why wasn't I able to protect my image when, with all my might I pushed the beggar to the ground. The answer is simple - even if I were the most powerful human on this planet I wouldn't have been able to protect an 'Image'. Yet I spend my whole life trying to live up to my...