I took the coach today. I made my entry into the coach and paid my ticket fare as I boarded the coach. As I walked in, one man from the back raised his hand and said, “there is a seat for you there,” and I thanked him for pointing it out to me.
I then sat on the vacant seat and on my right was an elderly gentleman who was in his 70’s and on my left was a younger guy in his early 20’s. I sat down there enjoying the journey and all of a sudden the younger chap on my left started to fall asleep. He had his left arm and hand supporting his head and each time when he dozes his left arm drops and his hand hits my right arm.
I was thinking to myself “Great! This is what I need for a great start in the morning.” So this went on for a while and the elderly chap on my right saw this and I looked at him and both of us nodded our heads (as a sign to acknowledge this behaviour of sleeping in the coach). I was kind of patient and sympathised with that guy as he might have had a very long night and now he is getting the after effects.
As it continued over and over again and now his head started to rest on my shoulder, I thought to myself that enough is enough and there is always a certain limit of toleration that each and everyone has and can take. I then turned around and touched the guy and say “Excuse me, can you please stop hitting me with your hand!” (At this point I wanted to go on further, but he nodded his head and raise his hand to say sorry. I didn’t know if he even had a clue of what I was saying as he looked really dazed and confused.)
However, I thought that I shall save it for later if he does it again I will definitely speak my mind out and tell him that I'm not his pillow and if he needs to sleep go home and do it (I know this might sound harsh, but, personally if you are travelling in the coach, it is not a place to sleep and to make the others around you to feel uncomfortable as it is a vehicle to transport you from point A to point B). Well he got off three stops later and I was just glad for that.
A few stops later, couple more people boarded the coach and there very a few elderly people who just boarded. I thought that I would get up and offer my seat to them. You will not believe this. Just about when I picked my bag up and was about to get up, the elderly gentleman on my right gently caught my right arm. I was puzzled as to why he did so, and he told me to sit down.
I felt really bad as I remained seated and not offering my seat to the elderly people now. I stayed on and continued the journey and I asked the elderly gentleman a question and he didn’t say much and just nodded. As we approach to the end of the journey the elderly man said to me, “Do you know why I asked you to sit down and not get up earlier?”, I said, “No, why?” He said, “Because there were some ‘bad people’ around”. You know what? I was so mad and shocked at this guys attitude. I almost lost it could have given him a piece of my mind as well after the first incident. But I thought to myself. What’s going on in the world today? Why are people behaving so strangely and having such mindsets? Wasn’t that man’s act of asking me to sit down and depriving the seat to the elderly a bad act itself that made me a ‘bad person’ or was his actions that made him a ‘bad person’?
As we progress in life, I would like to think that we also progress mentally and mature in everything that we do, but sometimes there are people who remain stagnant in their image and their mindset. At the end of the day, the question is a subjective one, because you have the power to decide and do what is best for yourself and determine if the people around you are ‘bad people’ or ‘good people’? Perhaps it’s a personal point of view, but it has also be stated that “ordinary people can succumb to social pressure to commit acts that would be otherwise unthinkable”, as psychologist Phillip Zimbardo has seen good people turn evil.
