"Treat others how you want to be treated." It's the golden rule, but most of us struggle at times to put it into practice. We all get grumpy, have bad days, and have impossibly hard and stressful things going on in our lives. That's why the mom behind the popular Facebook page Juggling the Jenkins just posted a hilarious PSA about a woman who honked at her for taking too long in a drive-through line, and it doesn't end the way you think it will.
Tiffany Jenkins was in a drive-through when her kid dropped a toy, so she reached down to find it and missed her cue to pull forward.
Not a big deal, right? Except Jenkins says the woman in line behind her was not having it.
"The lady behind me acts as if I have ruined her life completely," Jenkins recalled in her video. "She started slamming on her horn and throwing her hands up. And I was, like, looking and she's, like, mad. Like, foaming at the mouth."
"So you know what I did? I got out of the car and punched her in her throat."
Jenkins is only kidding, of course. She actually pulled up and paid for the woman's coffee.
Everyone can learn from Jenkins's act of kindness.
"Here's my thought process, okay? She's going through something this morning, and if I would have tried to get out of the car and give her a hug it would have been super awkward. So I just bought her coffee and I left, because life is really short."
Jenkins, a former addict who's been open about her struggles with addiction and mental health on Facebook, reminded her followers that people have to be kind because "we have no idea what other people are going through."
She added, "When strangers I don't know are rude to me or cut me off or don't say thank you when I hold the door open, I don't take that personally. I just remind myself that they are going through something that I know nothing about. They could possible be leaving a loved one's funeral, on the way to the divorce attorney, they could be in the middle of a custody battle … so instead of retaliating to get some kind of justice, I try to be as kind as I possibly can."
The video resonated with hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom started sharing their own unseen struggles.
One woman shared that she has been the "not nice" person lately -- because her brother just died.
Another person noted that even if there was nothing going on with the woman from the drive-through, at least Jenkins set a good example for her kids.
"The people who are grumpy and harboring resentment and angry, those people need love the most," Jenkins reminded her followers. "Those people who are often the hardest to love need love the most. So I encourage you today to not let other people get to you. … Just be kind."
