Mood Affect by Drivers and Pedestrians

I have lived in both the greater DC area and the greater NY area for some time. Having been around DC for around 5 years, I can really feel the difference between the busy lives of New Yorkers and the still busy lives of Washingtonians. Tourists often complaint about New Yorkers being mean and rude. When I was in New York, I agree with those New Yorkers. Lives there are just too fast paced. If you rush through that red light, you won't be able to make a right turn for another 5 minutes. And in New York, 5 minutes is a lot of time. It is for similar reasons that people always rush, cut in lines, and do things that are often times unacceptable to people who are not constantly situated under time limits, i.e. tourists. And vise-versa, the slow-dwelling building-gazing eye-wondering tourists in nearby streets of time square can seriously lead to hostility by "people who actually has meetings to attend to". I, too, was embedded in the thinkings of these. I believed I was busy, I believe I had no time to spear, I believe that everything was about competition. My family friend once told me, "If you are not aggressive, you are not only unable to get anything, you are not even going to survive."Even through that was referring to working on wall street, but the quote is a good exaggeration of the pressure I was feeling. I became somewhat depressed, feeling trapped, in the middle of air but hanging tightly onto that only rope of hope.

Places other than New York, for example, Washington DC, is covered in completely different atmosphere. No cars beeping at each other except for rush hours; nobody purposefully walk in front of you on a busy street; and nobody leaves garbage around in a coffee shop because they are "too busy" to throw them into the trash can two feet from them. Believe it or not, people outside of the greater New York area are extremely nice. They even say hi, good morning, good day, etc. to strangers. The longer I stay in DC, the more I adapt and appreciate the local practices of salutation, courtesy, and respect. The  omnipresent cherry blossoms trees also constantly provide nature therapy. And eventually, I felt happier, freer, and more in control of things.

Sometimes I go back to New York to visit my family. And boy do I feel the power of New York. That city can throw me right back into the ugly competition mode just by interacting with drivers and people walking on the street! But this is not to say that I dislike New York, New York has many great shops, architecture, history, etc. many great things but just not those drivers and pedestrians.