moments in assholery

i almost hit a pedestrian the other day while driving. i was making a left and i was so concerned with getting over the lane to the left of me that had oncoming traffic, that i didn't realize there was a guy trying to cross the street. i caught a glimpse of him in time to stop the car. as i brought my vehicle to a full stop, he looked at me and froze. another dude who was on the other side of the street about to cross said, "can you believe this guy?" to the guy i almost hit. i just sat there, foot firmly on the break, made eye contact with the dude i almost hit and told him i was sorry about five times. all he said to me was, "c'mon man, this is a residential area."

and then i drove off all sorts of shook up. i didn't wanna hit that guy. and all i could think about was what if i did hit that guy? what did that say about me? i was completely sober. i just wasn't paying full attention to all my surroundings. at what point on the moral compass do i become a bad dude in this situation? i don't feel like a bad dude but if i would've hit him, even if it was a total, absolute, 100% mistake on my part, i'm totally a bad guy. there's no getting around that. as the situation stands, that dude now has the right to refer to me as the asshole who almost hit him with a toyota corolla for the rest of his life. that's me. that's my role in this dude's life story. any and everything else about me carries no weight in his narrative.

here i was, i had spent my whole day like i spend most of my days. just trying to stay out of trouble. just trying to not be an asshole. just trying to enjoy life and not shit on anyone else's. those are my generic goals day to day in life. and in just one brief moment, the whole thing almost got fucked up. without trying very hard, i almost fucked another life up big time. and this took no effort on my part. i thought i was doing everything a-okay right up until i saw a dude a few feet from my car.

the whole thing is a sucky situation. there's only two things i can walk away from this situation with:

the first is gratitude. i'm glad i didn't hit that dude. i'm glad i didn't severely hurt another human being which in turn would've severely hurt his circle of family and friends... all for nothing. all because i was too dumb to pay attention to the details. i'm very thankful that my own airhead ways didn't cause any physical damage to another human being.

the second is a wake up call. i need to give driving my full, undivided attention. i can be a real dullard sometimes and that's fine if i hit my head on a low hanging tree branch or trip on a curb or forget to buy toilet paper. but when i'm in a car, that's a big hunk of machinery that can fuck shit up in an instant. and i need to do a better job of making sure i don't fuck anything up with said automobile... if not for me, then for the sake of my fellow humans. anything less makes me an asshole.