Overworked and underpaid. Or not paid at all.

I spend every Friday afternoon babysitting a seven year old girl, and part of my Friday duties involve taking her across Manhattan from her school to her ice skating lessons via bus. Usually it’s pretty uneventful, but on cold, rainy days, the bus gets incredibly crowded. Personal space is invaded, the clock ticks as we have to wait at every stop for passengers to get on and off the bus, and people get annoyed.
This Friday was one of those days. I was one of those annoyed people – babysitting is fun, but not when you’re trying to race a shivering little girl, and her bulky backpack and skate bag across an island. The bus was filled to capacity and it was clear that everyone was on their last nerves.
As the bus meandered between 5th and 6th Avenue, and I tried to calculate how late we would be for the skating lesson, the loudspeaker crackled and the bus driver begin to speak:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I want everyone on this bus to look at the person next to you and say, ‘I love you.’”
Everyone laughingly turned to their neighbors and did as told – suddenly that air of tension and aggravation started to dissolve. We needed that reminder – who cares if we’re going to be late to whatever meeting, job, or lesson that we were going too? The fact was that if that person standing next to us hadn’t stepped a little further into the bus, we had no chance in hell of getting anywhere.
I am so grateful that I was standing on that crowded bus on that cold Friday afternoon. The bus driver reminded us of something that we are constantly forgetting as isolated, independent New Yorkers – we need each other. In every dimension of life, we are a team. We can’t get from point A to point B without each other, whether that means from FDR Drive to Chelsea Piers, or kindergarten to college, or hell, even the day we are born to the day we die. We constantly forget all the factors, all the people, who have made each day of our lives possible. Most of the time we don’t even realize how many people really are on our team.
So the next time you’re on a crowded bus, I would encourage you to scoot back as far as you can. And do it with a smile.