Today I celebrate a personal victory.
I was driving to work today and the last part of the trip driving behind a person in a Nissan Qashqai+2 who was very obviously not paying attention; she was standing still while traffic light was green, was swerving between 2 lanes and took a sudden turn so hard the wheels might have left the road for a second.
Then I saw this person drive into the garage at my office. I saw where she parked and after parking myself I decided to confront her with her driving. The woman behind the wheel was still dicking around on her phone (which I imagine she was also doing during driving).
After initial denial (“Yes, I was paying attention”) and listing the things I have witnessed driving behind her all I got was a sarcastic “Well, thank you for the tip of the day”.
I don’t care about that. What I do care about is that I saw a situation, made my social fears melt away and decided not act instead of staying silent and annoyed. Even if it had no effect on the woman driving like an idiot, I did everything I could to do something about it.
I chalk up a personal victory in my long road in overcoming my social fears and store it in my bag of experience that make me a stronger person.