In Praise of the Extra Three Seconds
Almost every everyday courtesy costs the same amount: about three seconds. That is the price of holding a door for the person a few steps behind you, of waving a nervous driver into your lane, of telling the cashier the man behind you has two items and you have forty.
Three seconds is nothing. It is less time than a yawn. And yet the decision to spend it is one of the most closely watched performances in public life. The person you held the door for noticed. So did the stranger behind them, who now holds it too. Courtesy is the only currency that multiplies when spent in front of witnesses.
What makes the extra seconds remarkable is that they are voluntary in a way big kindness is not. Nobody expects you to pay a stranger's rent. Everybody, on some level, hopes you will not let the door swing shut in their face. Meeting that small hope, dozens of times a day, is how strangers keep agreeing — silently, continually — that we are on the same team.
The opposite is also true, which is why a slammed door stings beyond reason. It is never about the door. It is a tiny vote against you, cast by someone who could have voted for you at no cost.
The good news is the polls never close. The next door is coming, and the next merging car, and the next chance to give away three seconds you will not miss. Spend them like the rich person you are.
