Vzpomněl jsem si na příhodu, kterou měl Stephen Covey v metru v Novém Yorku:

I remember a mini-paradigm shift I
experienced one Sunday morning on a
subway in New York. People were
sitting quietly—some reading
newspapers, some lost in thought, some
resting with their eyes closed. It was a
calm, peaceful scene.
Then suddenly, a man and his children
entered the subway car. The children
were so loud and rambunctious that
instantly the whole climate changed.
The man sat down next to me and
closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to
the situation. The children were yelling
back and forth, throwing things, even
grabbing people’s papers. It was very
disturbing. And yet, the man sitting next
to me did nothing.
It was difficult not to feel irritated. I
could not believe that he could be so
insensitive as to let his children run wild
like that and do nothing about it, taking
no responsibility at all. It was easy to
see that everyone else on the subway felt
irritated, too. So finally, with what I felt
was unusual patience and restraint, I
turned to him and said, “Sir, your
children are really disturbing a lot of
people. I wonder if you couldn’t control
them a little more?”
The man lifted his gaze as if to come to
a consciousness of the situation for the
first time and said softly, “Oh, you’re
right. I guess I should do something
about it. We just came from the hospital
where their mother died about an hour
ago. I don’t know what to think, and I
guess they don’t know how to handle it
either.”
Can you imagine what I felt at that
moment? My paradigm shifted. Suddenly
I saw things differently, and because I
saw differently, I thought differently, I
felt differently, I behaved differently.
My irritation vanished. I didn’t have to
worry about controlling my attitude or
my behavior; my heart was filled with
the man’s pain. Feelings of sympathy and
compassion flowed freely. “Your wife
just died? Oh, I’m so sorry! Can you tell
me about it? What can I do to help?”
Everything changed in an instant.