Essays

by Scribe Leaf Library · 1 min read · 0 views

A woman at the pharmacy counter once spent four extra minutes helping me understand an insurance form I was too embarrassed to admit I didn't follow, with a line of six people behind me and not one sigh from her the entire time. I think about her more than the moment probably deserves. We rarely calculate what a stranger's ordinary patience costs them — the meeting they're now late for, the break they won't get, the quota some manager will ask about later — because their patience arrives to us as effortless, a background feature of the transaction rather than a gift someone actively chose to give. I don't think the answer is guilt about this. I think the answer is noticing it, specifically, in the moment, and saying so, because a stranger's patience is one of the few genuinely voluntary kindnesses left in a transactional world, and the least we owe it is the small acknowledgment that we clocked it as a choice, not a service.