Ashok Vemuri’s Blog

I was at my daughter’s school yesterday to pick her up in the evening. There were these two women walking behind me. They were picking up their own kids, and they also had a toddler with them in a stroller. As I got out the gate, I held it open for these two women to come out, as a courtesy. If someone does the same favor for me, I would politely thank them, but these women didn’t. Instead, they brushed past me, pushing their stroller in a rush. I was mighty pissed off, for I thought it was very rude behavior on their part.

I then got into my car and started for home. There I saw these two women and their kids, hurriedly walking towards the bus stop close by, and the bus was just about to leave. Then it occurred to me why they were in such a rush at school. They didn’t want to miss the bus and so didn’t have time for pleasantries when I held the gate open for them.

Let me add a little more context here. It was a rainy evening, and these women didn’t have umbrellas with them for some reason. And the bus stop didn’t have a roof to keep them from getting wet. If they missed that bus, they would have to wait for the next one in rain, along with the kids.

That brings me to the lesson I have often heard over the years. Before you get upset with someone for their actions, maybe, just maybe, you should think about it from their perspective. You might be able to find at least some semi-convincing reason why they behaved the way they did. Probably not in all cases, but a few for sure. So what’s in it for you? Less blood pressure and a little more peace of mind – something we all could use!

United States Congress is busy finalizing a huge spending bill, totaling nearly 410 billion dollars, to fund the federal government budget through rest of the fiscal year. It supposedly includes thousands of pet projects of law makers, costing more than 5 billion dollars. President Obama is expected to sign it into law.

In all fairness, not all of those pet projects might be called wasteful spending, but I am certain a lot of it is. As much an admirer of Obama that I am, I find it disappointing that he is willing to sign the bill. That, despite his election promises that he would no longer allow these pet projects, and that he would go line by line in the budget to eliminate them. The official response from his White House team is that this spending bill is an “unfinished business” from previous administration, and that he has no intention of vetoing it.

I don’t know if he is being “politically accommodative” by selectively picking his fights with law makers. May be he is, because he needs their support big time to push his agenda through in the coming days. But on the face of it, his willingness to sign the bill, with all the pet projects intact, seems like a forgotten election promise to me. There better be a good reason for it – because simply saying it is the previous administration’s unfinished business sounds like a lame excuse!