MODERN LIFE

I Witnessed Humanity at Trader Joe’s Today and Sobbed

A reminder: There is still kindness — it’s a minuscule percentage of awful people making life difficult for all of us

Image by Dawn Rose from Pixabay

Okay, the price for feta at that first store was outrageous, ugh, but I need it as the final ingredient for that summer-salad thing I’m whipping together for a first-time dinner guest tonight, so a five-minute run to Trader Joe’s it is! You’ve got all you need except for the dijon mustard, so that’s only two items, you’re only getting two items, so this is in and out, in and out, no dilly-dallying, no browsing, no other crap thrown in the basket. In and out.

I was on a freakin’ mission. Parking lot navigation was simple for once and I had bags in hand. I was on my way in — it was going to be easy. And it was! Smiles all around. Friendly humans just doing the best they can, not too crowded, a lovely experience. Life should be this effortless.

As I aimed to step out, there he was.

A guy in a wheelchair. A fellow shopper. Older guy. Perhaps his first time navigating public life in a chair. The first day of taking the risk, trying to endure his “new normal” and shopping. Can you imagine that day when it arrives in your life? The mix of feelings?

He was slow-going. Determined, but faltering.

An attentive and ambulatory friend accompanied him, giving him respectful space. The guy had overshot the Trader Joe’s entry door by a foot or two and now had to figure out a backing-up, three-point turn. Slowly.

His chair blocked the entire entry/exit area. People had places to go and things to do! It was a challenge, but he wasn’t flummoxed or embarrassed. He was focused, struggling and alive.

And suddenly, beautifully — I don’t know how else to describe it — it was like I was in The Matrix movie, where the entire sidewalk, everyone trying to enter the store and everyone trying to exit the store, transitioned into slow-motion and then came to a complete stop. Felt like it even came with a sound effect.

Utter stillness. Everyone.

It was like “the film” had stopped. Or been put on pause.

We stood there. Out of his way. And watched.

I didn’t hear a single sigh of impatience. Zero folks attempted to dart around or pass him on their manic way to the bread aisle. My human brethren — beautifully empathic, appropriately respectful and fully in the moment — stood and bore witness. Modeling decency.

It was seven or eight seconds. A lifetime in today’s overstimulated world. Sit there now — yes, right now! — and count it. One… two… three… four… five… six… seven… eight. Just standing there.

That’s a huge wrench thrown into the forward momentum of today’s attention spans. A gigantic pause. An eternity. A rest.

Dare I say… a reset?

He pushed forward. Back. Forward. Back. Back. Then forward and into the store with his friend.

And I walked to the car — feta and dijon in hand — and felt it coming. This sob, this unexpected blubber that was about to make its way up my chest and out of me.

I wasn’t fighting off tears for him. For the man. This wasn’t pity. He was fine. I was fighting off a sudden wave of sadness for the rest of us. For those of us who’d just been standing there.

It was so damn beautiful. The smallest thing. Common decency. Appropriate, non-exploitative respect. Normal kindness.

It rolled over me in waves as I dropped into my car’s seat. What happened? I shook my head; I sighed.

Photo by author

We don’t acknowledge, we don’t appreciate the weight we’ve all been carrying within ourselves — daily — for the past ten or so years. We’ve been ground down. There isn’t time for lightness, for kindness. There’s a bitterness. A hardness. A shell, a forcefield we’ve had to put up to just get through another day.

Humanity has been reduced to base instincts. Survival. A crassness. We look around and are just disgusted by the selfishness, the self-involvement, the literal decline in discourse and respectful interaction. Things are grim and keeping one’s head above water is the only objective.

We forget, the empathy, the kindness, is being violently strangled out of us.

In the U.S., health insurance premiums (that guarantee next to no coverage) keep us awake at night. In the UK it’s another day, another misinformation blitz over immigration. In Ukraine we’re into four years of air raid sirens.

Every grocery run is a financial negotiation. Tech bros promise convenience while erasing livelihoods and natural resources with glee. My adolescent nation is facing an-only-250-year anniversary, I am furious inside and I refuse to celebrate this failed experiment, this floating garbage pile of greed, global bullying and reality-show pizazz succeeding over educated substance! I am pissed off and not well.

Two and three-income households has become the requirement for normal existence. Subscription models encroach into everything and customers are raped and pillaged instead of respected. It’s now fully by design and the enjoyment, the ease, the fun and the hopefulness has been throttled out of our supposed-to-be-gleeful young people.

Those eight seconds, witnessing something that’s now rare — some goodness, kindness, appreciation and respect — shook me to the core. It was a reminder that, wonder of wonders, so many of my human brothers and sisters still have a kindness in them. They just don’t get a chance to exercise it as often because they’re being oppressed and crushed from all sides.

We are juggling so much. This way of life we’ve adapted to is not normal.

Humans out there — every day — somehow, still have the first-instinct reaction to be kind. When their brain and soul is even allowed to remember. I saw it in person. I felt it. Breathed it. And almost cried.

Why? Because 90% of the time I don’t see it because I’m too freakin’ angry and morally exhausted all the time!!

Sitting there in that parking lot, pulling myself together, I was reminded of a recent meme —

It’s crazy that 95% of people just want a nice, normal life on our beautiful, already abundant planet, where they can have their basic needs met and cute experiences with their loved ones, and then we have 5% of evil, narcissistic goons at the top, globally, fcking it up for all of us.*

It’s literally a fractional percent that are awful, y’all. YES, their actions are affecting us all, yes, a handful of men over age 70, globally, are holding us in a chokehold as they cling to power.

But beneath it all, we’re here. We aren’t horrible.

Humans still have the capacity for kindness. We’re all just too busy holding on by our fingernails. If you step out of the matrix, if you dare to slow down, shut off the noise and look, there are stunningly beautiful humans out there deliberately injecting moments of kindness into the world.

Not a single world problem was resolved in that Trader Joe’s parking lot. But perhaps my default way of experiencing this world was.

We will be okay. We will. I now know it.

Keep your eyes open so you can witness it too.

Or better yet, initiate it. Make it your mission. A quest.

Just have some tissues handy.

Because tears just may be a (wonderful) side-effect.

©2026 Joe Guay | All Rights Reserved

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