What goes around

It happens often enough these days. You are standing in the checkout line at a department store with your car, awaiting your turn. Just as you get to the counter, the person behind you requests you if he could go ahead since he has only one item to buy. What do you do? Insist on following the system since you were ahead anyway? Or do you make an exception and let him go ahead? Is this a big deal?

There is no right answer. Following the system, first come first served, is the rational, logical approach. Letting a fellow shopper go ahead with his solitary purchase while you wait to buy a cart-load of stuff seems reasonable too. It won't make a huge dent in the greater picture given the fact that your billing will take much longer. So what is the right answer? How do you decide? If I am not in a tearing hurry, I usually oblige the other person. Why?

I once traveled from California to India with Aparna who was 2 years old then. For some unknown reason, she began throwing up soon after we boarded the trans-Atlantic flight. She was unable to keep anything in and started appearing quite dehydrated after a bout of vomiting and retching every half hour. After 8 hours of this, we landed in Frankfurt. I wondered if I should get off and seek medical attention or continue on the second leg of the journey.During the stopover, Aparna finally took a few sips of water and was able to keep it in without promptly ejecting it. I thought it was a sign of improvement and boarded the flight to Mumbai. We had been assigned two middle seats. I knew that I had frequent trips to the washroom ahead of me on this leg as well given Aparna's condition and requested the person in the aisle seat if he would exchange seats with me. He refused instantly since he had specifically requested an aisle seat and was not going to part with it. I was taken aback but did not have much choice. I then requested the other gentleman seated on the other side. He promptly obliged and moved into an uncomfortable middle seat. I was intensely grateful for his consideration. It made the rest of the journey a little bit easier as I made endless trips to the washroom.

A few years later, I was traveling alone in business class from Paris, in an aisle seat. A family of four had been upgraded from economy and were assigned seats next to mine. The mother of the two kids came up to me and requested me to change seats with her son who had been throwing up on the previous flight. I promptly obliged. I definitely empathized with her and her concern for her child's well-being. But more importantly, I remembered the kindness of another stranger a decade ago and felt that it was opportunity for me to repay it. I was not returning a favor to the same person but repaying a debt by making a deposit into the global "good-deeds" bank. I was helping someone who may in turn pay it forward for another person in need.

Allowing the person behind me in line to cut across is not a big deal or a great deed. I don't endorse people cutting across queues thoughtlessly. But sometimes there are opportunities to be gracious, particularly when asked politely, to give a few minutes of a head start to another person. Who knows whether these few minutes may be paid back by another person to me when I need those minutes the most? And if it does not come back to me, I can rest peacefully knowing that someone in greater need has made a withdrawal from the good deeds bank. What a lovely thought!