I have two pet peeves that probably bother me way more than they should: people who don't return their shopping carts and people who don't use turn signals. I realize neither of these ranks particularly high on the list of problems facing society today, and I should probably be able to walk through a grocery store parking lot without forming strong opinions about complete strangers. Apparently, I'm not. Over the years, I've developed a theory that you can tell an awful lot about a person based on these two incredibly simple things. Maybe that's unfair. Maybe I'm being judgmental. Both are entirely possible, but neither has changed my mind.
Let's start with the shopping cart. You just pushed that thing around a store for what, 30 or 45 minutes? Depending on the size of the store and how bad you are at remembering what you came there for, you might have pushed it 2,000 or 3,000 feet. You went up and down aisles, doubled back for something you forgot, pushed it through the checkout line, across the parking lot and finally, got it to your car. Then you unloaded everything, looked over at the cart return 25 feet away and apparently decided, "Nah. That's just too far." So instead, you wedge it against a curb, leave it in an empty parking spot or give it a little shove and hope for the best. If the wind catches it and rolls into somebody's $60,000 vehicle, I guess that's their problem. After all, you had places to be. You couldn't possibly be expected to push that cart another 25 feet after pushing it a couple thousand.
Of course, there's always my favorite excuse: "They have people who work here to do that." Yeah, they do. But let me ask you something. What if you were one of those people? Better yet, what if your son or daughter was the kid working outside in the rain or 90-degree heat collecting carts? Would you still think it was perfectly reasonable for everybody to leave them scattered all over the parking lot because technically somebody gets paid to pick them up? There's a difference between somebody having a job to do and intentionally making their job harder because you're too lazy to clean up after yourself.
Which brings me to the turn signal. At least returning a shopping cart requires some actual physical effort. Not much, but you do have to walk somewhere. Using a turn signal requires your hand to move somewhere in the neighborhood of four to six inches. Your hand is already right there. I understand that a surprising number of people apparently still haven't mastered the whole left-versus-right concept, but, make an effort. Pick one. Give the rest of us some indication that something is about to happen. I have a friend who owns a BMW, so obviously he understands this problem better than most. He assures me BMW actually offers a blinker package. Apparently his just didn't come with it. I appreciate that he can at least admit it, although I'm still not entirely convinced turn signals are standard equipment on a BMW. Judging by what I see on the road, I assume you have to special order them, and even if you do, apparently the blinker fluid is either ridiculously expensive or constantly on backorder.
BMWs aside, I've never understood this one. You know where you're going, but I don't. If you're going to suddenly slow from 45 to 10 because you're turning right, that information could be somewhat useful to the person driving behind you. If you're coming into my lane, I'd love a little heads-up. If I'm sitting at an intersection waiting for you to pass before I pull out and you were actually planning to turn before you got to me, thanks for wasting everybody's time. You literally have a device built into your vehicle for the sole purpose of telling the rest of us what you're about to do, and apparently moving your finger four inches is just asking too much.
And that's really what bothers me about both of these things. It's the attitude that whatever happens next is somebody else's problem. The cart is empty, so you're done with it. You know where you're turning, so everyone else can figure it out. Neither situation requires much effort, but both require acknowledging that other people exist and that your actions might affect them. Nobody is handing out trophies for returning a cart or sending thank-you notes for using a turn signal. You just do it because it's the right thing to do.
I think those little decisions tell us more about someone's character than we might realize. It's easy to do the right thing when people are watching or when there's something in it for us. What interests me is what we do when neither is true. Do we clean up after ourselves? Do we take responsibility for something even when we could easily leave it for somebody else? Do we spend an extra minute making someone else's day a little easier? None of those things is particularly impressive on its own, but over time, they say quite a bit about who we are.
I see a similar principle in my work as a financial advisor. Some of the most important financial decisions aren't particularly exciting, and the benefits aren't always immediate. It's making sure your spouse and children are protected, taking care of responsibilities before they become somebody else's problems, and making small decisions today that can make a meaningful difference years down the road. Much like returning the cart, sometimes doing the right thing means taking a few extra steps now so somebody else doesn't have to deal with the consequences later.
The older I get, the more I think life is made up of far more 25-foot decisions than monumental ones. We spend a lot of time thinking about the big moments that define us, but maybe who we are is revealed just as much in the hundreds of little moments nobody else notices. Those decisions become habits, and those habits eventually tell a story about the kind of person we've become. Sometimes character is simply doing what you should do, even when there's no reward for doing it and no punishment for walking away.
So yes, I'm probably still going to judge you a little bit when I watch you leave your shopping cart six spaces away from the return. And if you cut across three lanes of traffic without touching your turn signal, I'm probably going to judge you quite a bit more. Maybe that says something about me, too. But come on. You just pushed the cart 3,000 feet. Give me another 25. And unless you bought your BMW without the blinker package or you're fresh out of blinker fluid, your hand is already on the steering wheel. Move it four inches. Sometimes being a decent human being really isn't that complicated.