“It’s just plain rude,” I said to Sera as I batted down another branch on our daily walk. These branches have been a source of frustration since we moved to our new neighborhood, but I hadn’t had the opportunity to complain about them until my wife and I recently began our walks around the neighborhood together. There are numerous yards along our walking (and my jogging) path that have low hanging branches stretching across the sidewalk path. They love to irritate me, and my wife finds it amusing to see me irritated.

I think she’s amused by it because I don’t get irritated very often. My passive-aggressive nature causes me to whack the branches aside every time we encounter them, but not hard enough to cause any damage or even cause a leaf to fall from their branches. I’d never be “that neighbor” who approaches the homeowners to complain, but I’ll certainly admit that I have some choice words to say to them under my breath every time I pass by.

What’s the deal with this? Do these homeowners not understand that people want to walk on the sidewalks, and their low-hanging branches are in the way? How many other people is this bothering? At first I thought this was some conspiracy to prevent taller people from using sidewalks, but when Sera and I started walking together, it became clear this was a problem for her too. (She clocks in about eight inches shorter than me.)

These branches are, of course, worse when you’re running. I have a pretty regular 5K route that I run, and there are roughly seven times I need to push my way through branches in order to reach the finish. This week I officially crossed the 100-miles run for the summer, meaning I’ve pushed away branches something like 225 times this year. Note: My willingness to provide statistics for this column should reveal how irritated I am, as I am really not a fan of doing math.

It dawned on me a few days ago that my irritation was a bit unfounded. What I imagined as spiteful neighbors were actually people who likely never used the sidewalk and never realized there was a problem in the first place. Most trees look nice from a kitchen window, so why waste time trimming a perfectly good-looking tree?

This moment of reflection made me realize the tree branches could easily be a metaphor. How often do we not take action because something isn’t impacting us, but it is causing unrelenting problems for others? I think we could all benefit from examining what barriers we may have put up to block others from finding success. Just as I’ve been frustrated with my neighborhood’s branches, I could also unintentionally be causing someone else to be frustrated.

Maybe you don’t think about racism because you’ve never experienced it. Maybe you don’t help people out of poverty because you’ve never experienced what it’s like to be poor. Maybe you don’t care about texting and driving because you’ve never been in a car accident. Or maybe you don’t trim your tree branches because they’re not in your way. When we live without thinking of how our actions impact others, we’re living selfishly.

Sometimes only we can decide to make a difference in the lives of others. As much as I want to grab a tree branch trimmer and go crazy on my neighborhood’s branches, that’s not within my rights to do. I can only trim my own trees and hope others do the same. Yet, with trees untrimmed, I’m still running the path. We shouldn’t let obstacles outside of our control prevent us from pursuing our dreams.

Every once in a great while, we might happen to run past a low hanging branch while a neighbor is outside and recognizes the problem, takes action and corrects it. In those moments, we should rejoice in our victory. Though victory may seem rare, the crusade against the branches (and the actual issues facing people today) are well worth pursuing when improvement is just one trim away.

 

Rochester resident Matt Knutson is the communications and events director for United Way of Olmsted County.