When I go for a jog along my street, I reckon about 55 to 60 percent of the residents wave at me from their cars as I shuffle past. But the problem is that when a car approaches, it’s hard to know if it contains wavers or non-wavers because pretty much everyone in my street drives a white Mazda CX3 or CX5. For a while, I tried to guess which Mazda had occupants who waved and which Mazda didn’t. But that just resulted in me waving to non-wavers and not waving to wavers. I made so many incorrect calls that by the end of a jog, I’d be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
So I resolved to just wave at everyone.
The problem with that is rejection weighs heavily on me and waving at everyone involves a lot of rejection. At first, I was gutted by how many of my waves were left unanswered. But I kept waving. I was determined to keep my side of the street clean. And even though the percentage of return-waves never increased, I started to care less about them. And that in turn helped me care less about other rejections in my life. Maybe I was developing the emotional maturity most people developed at 12. Or maybe, just maybe, their hurtful unwillingness to lift a single finger off their steering wheel drained me of all the fucks I had to give.
Next week, I’ll report back on who in my street reads thekicker.substack.com.
MAKING WAVES
People ... sheesh, am I right. Adam, don't freely throw away your heart felt wave! Only advance the jest if a wave is spent your way. You ARE the power. They WISH they could be you. You are the SUNSHINE in THEIR lives, shining fitness & nonchalant'ness they can only admire. Also, maintain a healthy no'fucks storehouse. Ya never know who you'll meet round the block. Imho of course.