Kindness in a Car Accident.

I was in a car accident recently. No one was hurt, thankfully, but both vehicles clearly had damage. And in the seconds after it happened, I had no idea how either of us was going to respond.

You don't, really. You don't know how you'll show up when something stressful happens and catches you off guard. And you definitely don't know what you're walking toward when the other person opens their car door.

What I was met with opened up something light inside me.

She got out of her car. We looked at each other. And she hugged me.

Are you okay?

Yes. Are you okay?

I thanked her for that hug. She looked at me and said, It happens. Just like that. No blame. No accusations. No finger-pointing at whose fault it was. She didn't know exactly what to do next and neither did I, because this was the first accident I'd ever been in as a driver.

So we figured it out together: exchange information, call the insurance company, let them handle it.

Now this isn’t a blog about the car accident and what the outcome was, no, this was a powerful reminder of how we treat people, matters.

The whole drive home, I kept thinking about how differently that could have gone.

What if I'd come out of my car with a chip on my shoulder? Guns blazing, blame already ready? She might have matched that energy and then you've got two angry people in a parking lot, both trying to be right instead of trying to move forward.

Nothing would have gotten solved any faster. It just would have felt worse. For both of us.

Blame is the easier way to go, isn’t it? It lets us off the hook from looking at the part we played. It's far more comfortable to point the finger outward than to turn it around and face whatever's staring back at you in the mirror.

In that parking lot, I genuinely asked myself: did I cause this? I wasn't sure because it all happened so fast. Maybe it was her. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was both of us, or neither. But the answer didn't change what mattered: we both had damage, it needed to get fixed, and the best path forward was to handle it and let the insurance sort out the rest. I was at peace with whatever outcome came from that. And I could feel she was too.

How you treat people matters. Not just when it's convenient, not just when people are watching but in the small, stressful, unscripted moments. It matters with the people in your inner circle, and with complete strangers in parking lots who are just as shaken as you are.

Kindness in those moments isn't weakness. It's clarity. It creates space for two people to actually solve something instead of making it worse.

This one little accident reminded me of that more than almost anything has in a long time.

Be kind, especially when it's hard.

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou

How you treat people matters. It says a lot about who you are, because you don’t know what the other person is going through and we all deserve to be treated with human decency.

Even when we are to blame, even when we’re in the wrong, even when we make mistakes.

Think about that next time someone cuts you off, next time the cashier scans something twice by accident, or if your waitress accidentally brings you the wrong order.

How you treat people matters more than anything, especially now, whether you know them or you don’t.