Yehoshua Halevi is a photographer in Israel that has a site (and business) called Golden Light Images.  He has a weekly “great Israel picture of the week” newsletter and blog.  I’ve had the chance to take a photo-taking educational tour with him, and it was well worth the time and money.

He sent out this antecdote with this week’s photo…

(Photographer Yehoshua Halevi…) Last Thursday I worked an event in downtown Jerusalem. The evening began with a maddening traffic jam that turned a 10-minute ride into an hour of frustration and I arrived late to a job for the first time in my professional career. I then worked seven hours standing on my feet, packed up my car and headed home. As I pulled onto the tunnel road, which connects Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood with my home in Gush Etzion, I brought my car to a halt in an endless line of traffic. For the second time that day, at 12:24 a.m., a 10-minute drive became a slow and painful crawl home.

With one lane closed for construction, traffic moved about a quarter of a mile at a time with seven-to-eight minute standstill delays. At 12:52 a.m., now halfway through the second tunnel, the horns started. Miserable drivers, no doubt similarly exhausted, began blaring their horns in disgust. First one, then another until at least a dozen joined the fray. I turned up the music in my car and closed my eyes. When I opened them again a moment later, I spotted a van that had pulled into the service bay of the tunnel. The slider opened and out jumped a man, than another and another until eight men, charedim (ultra-orthodox chassidic Jews) in black coats and hats, joined hands and danced in a joyful circle to the midnight din. We always have a choice. Life is short. Live every moment.

A message I badly needed to hear and remember.  It’s been a bad week and a bad day for me and my family, negative events providing serious challenges.  I’m frustrated and upset and very ready to beep my horn.  Maybe I need to get out of the car and dance!