Judgmental..... Really?

Many times things are not as they appear. Many times one thinks of saying something unfriendly to someone who appears to be not nice. It is always good to hold those thoughts, weigh the options and try not to say that as any bad thing said will yield nothing but bad karma. It is never easy apologizing for use of such behavior. However there is something even more difficult than that. I will share a recent experience and you decide if my feelings were justified…

Recently I had to fly for work, as I do a few times every year, but this time it was different in more ways than one. First of all I was flying in the afternoon from my home base rather than my usual morning flights.  Secondly I had only 1 hour left for my flight to take off when I reached the airport, usually I have 2 or more hours to spare (though I always feel that it is an overkill). But today I knew why it was better to be 2 hours ahead at the airport. The security lanes were full as if a good part of the world wanted to fly out of this airport today. I could have said something on the collage of humanity I could see, but to me this medley was looking threatening instead of interesting (another deviation from my usual). Like ants marching towards a piece of sweet all those people inching towards the TSA agents on the dais to get their boarding passes initialed.

I am going to miss my flight; right in the middle of having that thought I saw a ray of light. There were two sides, one with 3 TSA folks on dais and about 100 people in line and the other with 4 TSA people but around 4 times more people lined up. So there seems to be a shorter line. But as fate will have it, there was this stern looking lady (reminded me of my high school history teacher) who was deciding which way one should go. And when I told her I was in a hurry she pointed me to the side with 4 times more people.

I was annoyed and wanted to scream at her. But I didn’t, I wanted to say that she had been mean but I stopped the words from leaving my tongue and moved on. After I had moved 4-5 steps, another TSA employee stopped me and asked to examine me. She had a swab in her hand to rub on my palms and shoes. I was sure that the lady who guided me on this side had read my expression and to show her mean power had gestured this other one to check. I was really mad by now. But again decided to stay calm and accept what was happening. Honestly, I am not saint so I did say some mean things about both of them in my mind. I hoped that they realize how their being bad with people like me can really cause trouble. I hoped that they stop misusing their TSA rank. After all, their job is airport security and not gaining vicious pleasure in harassing someone like me.

In the middle of all these not so friendly thoughts about their ‘meanness’ I moved slowly with the line and reached at the end where the person on the dais checked my boarding pass, cleared me and then said, “wait, we have the x-rays backed up so stay here till those start moving again.” By the way this announcement was for every one and not just me. Now I was certain that I will miss my flight and my ill feeling for the two ladies grew even stronger. Now that I had nothing else to do so I and the Guy at the dais started talking. “You see this is an expedite lane still things at times get backed up here.”  He said. I was not able to understand what he meant by expedited lane, as I had seen at least 4 times more people in this side than the other side. I continued listening to him in disbelief, “You don’t have to go through additional security, no taking off of shoes or belts, no removing of laptop from the bags in this lane as this is our busiest hour, so we hope this helps passengers like you.” I looked at him and then at the people ahead, the security X-rays were busy (though only 2 belts) and people zipping through these at top speed. Where in the other side had 20 belts but still the wait in the Lane was more than 30 minutes on that side after the TSA agent has Okay-ed the Boarding pass.

Now I realized what the two women had meant by expedited lane. What I had seen was just the entrance and made an opinion, whereas the reality lied behind the TSA screen. I felt ashamed for my thoughts earlier and I offered my sincere apology to both the agents at the entrance. Like my anger; my apology was also only in my heart. I didn’t even utter a word to anyone. I have boarded my plane and writing this while flying. The weight of my ill thoughts about the perceived meanness from the two ladies is really big burden on my conscience. I know now that they were being nice to me. I feel like going back and thanking the lady and apologizing for how I had judged her in my mind, which of course I cannot do. So I thought I will write this as my apology. And as a reminder that many times things are not as they appear. So we should not judge. I have faith that since in the electronic era everything is connected so my apology will reach her and also my apology will at least impact one person in a similar situation and make him or her keep faith and don’t judge.