Editor's note: Mike Masterson is taking the day off. The original version of this column was published Sept. 17, 2013.
Lately I've been paying more attention to how others react to what I say and do. Actually, I've been trying to determine how much of what I experience from others comes from my initial actions toward them, which would mean I wind up creating much of my own reality.
Conclusion: It really does pretty much all begin with me.
The other day in traffic, I stopped to let a waiting motorist into the line. My initial inclination was to keep forging ahead, leaving the patient lady in the SUV to sit for as long as it took her to find a hole.
You probably know the attitude: "Hey, I'm a busy person with places to go, so you can wait ..."
But this time I didn't. She smiled, waved and drove down the street several blocks until I saw her brake lights pop on as she slowed to allow another waiting driver into our line.
Perhaps her thoughtfulness had nothing to do with me. But I suspected my action in some small way influenced hers.
Some might call this the "pay it forward" concept to living together as a species. That's where you do good for strangers and they repeat the process for others they don't know until the chain of thinking about others is broken by the one who couldn't care less.
In examining my intentions and reactions, I've concluded that they matter more than I ever realized in whatever returns to me.
During my experiment in human interactions, I've also started allowing the person in the grocery checkout line with a few items slip in ahead of my crowded cart rather than making them wait. In virtually every instance, they not only seemed grateful, but some were even shocked that I'd invited them to jump ahead.
The other day while checking out at a craft store, the cashier asked if I had one of their discount cards. I didn't. But the person just behind me in line whipped his card out and the clerk scanned it, thus saving me $12.
That person didn't have to go to the trouble for me.
As I was exiting the store, an older lady walking with a cane accidentally dropped her purse. I walked over, picked it up and placed it back in her shaking hands. My turn.
The experience at the cash register moments earlier prompted me to want to be nice to someone else. Just such an opportunity, remarkably enough, had presented itself within moments.
Not long ago I decided to yank another wild hair. I paid for the order placed by the person in the car behind me at a fast-food restaurant. My rationale was that for less than $10, I could brighten someone else's existence. And perhaps by paying their tab I might plant the seed to one day repeat a similar gesture.
In pulling away from the window that evening, I caught a glimpse in the mirror of their lights flashing appreciation.
Don't misunderstand. I'm not writing this to make it appear I'm someone I'm not. I have as many flaws and shortcomings as anyone, even more in many ways.
All this simply confirmed what I've always suspected: That I create most of the reactions others show toward me.
In all honesty, over a lifetime I've often not recognized that fact at the moment. Hey, it's always easier to assign responsibility for less-than-pleasant events to others, isn't it?
How many times have I made a thoughtless comment to someone else without even realizing it had caused them pain, only to have them fire back with their own hurtful retort that caused me to react to their reaction, and off it went like endless reflections in a house of mirrors?
And the most interesting thing about it is that I never recognized it was my initial comment that set our negative exchange in motion. My self-absorbed view was they had started it with their reaction to me.
In 1976 when I roamed America on a journalism fellowship to write about people beside the highways, then-Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee wrote to warn me: "Watch out, Mike; if Ernie Pyle were ambling through America today, he'd be mugged."
I spent that full year without a negative incident. I believe that was because I showed respect for those I encountered, from the folks toiling in the tobacco fields of North Carolina to the Cajun miners in the salt mines of New Iberia.
If I met them with a smile, I almost always got a smile returned. Likewise with frowns.
The message for me is to be aware of the way I act with others, all the while realizing that I can't go wrong if I'm treating them the way I hope they treat me.
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.