… but most of the time it’s not.

And I’m not promoting it either.  But driving home from work yesterday, sitting at a busier-than-normal freeway exit, I see a truck driver sticking nearly his entire torso out of his window screaming at the driver in front of him.

Now I never rubberneck to look at accidents or altercations on the side of the road, but nobody was moving, and I was curious to see what the heck this dude was yelling so angrily about.  I couldn’t make out what he was saying at first, so I turned my radio off and rolled down the window to get a better listen.  The driver continued yelling in what sounded like a Nigerian accent.

“Why are you throwing your $H!t out your window!?  What’s wrong with you!? You want to start a fire or something?!  M0th##F#cka!”  I could’ve done without the expletives, but it added some flavor.

The other driver, a middle-aged skinny Asian guy in a white sedan, poked his head out his window, unaware of what the truck driver was yelling to him.  As soon as he heard him cussing up a storm, he immediately rolled his window  back up looking just a wee bit scared.

Apparently, the Asian guy had flicked his cigarette butt out his window into the dry brush along the freeway, and the truck driver behind him seeing this found it opportune to strike the fear of God into this man for not only littering but also for potentially sparking a brush  fire on the freeway.

How many times do we see someone doing something blatantly wrong, and we don’t say, or do, or even think anything of it?  Almost never?  The real and deeper question is, how many times do I do something or say something blatantly wrong and not think anything of it?  That’s the real and perhaps scarier question.

How many times am I too lazy in the supermarket parking lot to walk 20ft. to put away my cart in the cart area instead of leaving it in the middle of a parking space for someone else to deal with?  How many times do I talk crap about people behind their back and gossip?  How many times do I say nothing to a friend or family member who abuses drugs or alcohol, abuses themselves and abuses others?

Look, nobody’s perfect, but just because we aren’t, that doesn’t mean we can’t help each other out and say, “Hey, stupid! Don’t do that! That’s wrong! I should know. I do the same thing too, and I’M wrong!”  Not in so many words, but you get the picture.

I’m not talking about getting all up in people’s business.  There’s fault in going overboard too and correcting someone while forgetting to maintain a level of modesty.  But in a world that constantly shoves the “to each his own” philosophy in our face– which is a bunch of crap too, by the way– we lose sight of what the heck is right and wrong in the first place because, hey, to each his own, right?  (Hint: Wrong)

Not only will we lose our sense of right and wrong, but even worse, we stop caring to know what’s right and wrong.  And that’s extremely dangerous.  We won’t agree on everything, but we have to learn how to disagree and bicker and debate respectfully, all while stumbling forward, always seeking what’s right and not always defaulting to the lame excuse of “what’s right for one person isn’t always right for another.” Well, sometimes it is. Get over it.

When I heard what that truck driver was so angry about, I thought, “Good for him!”  Good for the both of them, the truck driver and the cigarette flicker.  Who knows, maybe he’ll think twice before littering the streets with his ashes, and maybe– just maybe– he’ll think twice about lighting another cigarette.  That truck driver, might have saved his life that day.  Maybe that smoker was overdue for another swift proverbial kick in the ass when everyone else had given up.  Maybe that changed his life.  I could only hope and pray.