Last week, after 6 months of staying in Miami with my husband, we decided to take a flight to Turks and Caicos for a few days. This decision was not so easy at the beginning because back in the beginning of July, my husband had gone through COVID-19. Though he had almost no side effects, he tested positive for nearly 3 weeks. Currently he has minimum antibodies and is liable of contracting novel coronavirus again.

After taking the required PCR test and filling in questionnaires required by the government authority, we were all packed and ready to go.

Miami International Airport was not so packed, compared to my previous memories. We checked in, went through security, and then we visited Hudson News to buy something to read for the plane. The booth was quite large, and I was at the back with my husband looking for an interesting magazine. After a few minutes of researching what to get, a voice from 8 feet away blared “Good morning ma’am” to me.

Not to fall into an argument I responded, “Good morning” and continued to look at the magazines with my husband. Still, I could not help but be irked—she demanded my attention, it felt. This incident also connected to another recent experience a dear friend shared with me. As she told me, “I was walking my two dogs and, while I was ready to pick up their poop, a [woman in a] car stopped in the corner to demand that I clean up after my pets. She repeated this to me—her tone was demeaning.” This censure came despite my friend already having the required plastic baggy in her hand, ready to clean.

These two incidents made me think about what some people are needing or wanting by judging and communicating to strangers in this way. We must make a big distinction, the differences between needs at wants. Needs, of course, are those things that sustain us, either personally or financially. What can sound “basic” for one person might not be for another person. Wants, on the other hand, are those things we can live without. The needs of one person might be the wants of the other one. Priorities and how we value things vary from one person to another and depends of several factors that are individual of each person.

In my interpretation, this worker at Hudson News, with her surly tone was maybe needing recognition, needing to be noticed and needing to connect, especially with the lack of connection during lockdown. She, herself, needed a “good morning.” My perspective was clear, and I was not going to create an argument with her. Even here, my effort is not to judge her but to showcase how we can curb the amount of conflicts we encounter by being in a different frequency—to be in conflict you need two people in the same frequency. In the incident about the dogs, the woman in the car had looked for trouble: she added judgment to (anticipated) behavior without actually seeing it. 

Similarly, sometimes we can be too much in our heads.  Depending on where we are standing in our lives, our minds might be cluttered with things and we may not be perfectly aware of what is happening in our surroundings. On top of being too much in our not-always-clear minds, it is very possible that we might improperly apply judgment when we are in a “me” (ego-driven) moments. I feel in these current troubling times we can all be, at certain moments of our days, in “me moments” and quite lost in our thoughts— detached from reality. From my point of view, society is still in resistance and adapting to this new norm that it is changing our lives every day. With this recent change, our narratives are constantly changing too—some of us, it seems, have lost touch with what we really want or need.

When it comes to arguing with a customer for recognition or being all too vigilant to make assumptions and get upset with a dog owner, what is really happening? The role of the judgment in both events I described is critical. How negative we must be to judge situations that the end result of the dialogue, and hostile tone, ends with war. Is this conflict what our society really needs or wants? Is this what our default is directing some of us to do?

In response to all this, I’d like to ask one question: Are we appreciating what we already have? This question is significant for our future. I wish our future society would raise their awareness.  We might have felt we are in a battlefield, and that can be very understandable, but a battlefield against health (COVID-19) has turned into a battlefield in which we are all in intense conflict with one another—even on innocent passersby whose actions, and hearts, we don’t really know.

I hope our society soon develops more tolerance and empathy. I wish our culture can break the current cycle of mediocracy, focused solely on ourselves, and embark on a new system of excellence, one this is focused on ourselves and others. Please take time, every day, to reflect and appreciate how fortunate you already are. Take time to recognize yourself, where you’re at, and to understand your triggers. It truly is all about perspective.