How To Do Stuff Well

02. How to Yield Well

Picture the scene: you're walking along a pavement in these plague years, minding your best business when, from around the corner, another person appears on your pavement – and they're on a collision course with you. Straightaway you notice how narrow the path looks. It's easily less than 6 feet and so, obviously, you won't be able to pass each other without both invading the other person's socially mandated exclusion zone. At the same time, you notice that cars are steaming by inches away from your elbow and there is nothing but private gardens on the other side. What can you possibly do! Well, here's where, hopefully, Yielding Well comes into its own.

You can do one of several things – walk into the road and hope that the people driving those metallically glinting cars will notice and slow down. Or you can hop over the fence or wall of the garden you're passing and hope you don't get shot as a trespasser (although, to be honest, it's only in certain states in the US you need to worry about that and you'll have to get over some jolly high walls and past a storm of rabid guard-dogs before being shot even becomes a concern). Or you can carry on walking with your head turned away from your fellow pavement-user whilst holding your breath. But whichever way you do it, it's important to keep hold of your dignity and not succumb to doing anything that you wouldn't want recording and posting on YouTube.

But even if you do Yield Well, there are still, unfortunately, things that can go wrong.

Imagine being in the scenario above and deciding to cross the road and then, having accomplished said feat to the soundtrack of car-horns blaring and tyres screeching, look back at the other person on the other side of the road only to find that they have completely vanished from the pavement you left! You then realise that they've arrived at their own house and are in the process of unlocking their front door from the safety of their garden or, worse, finding that they had exactly the same idea as you and, risking death and dismemberment, crossed the same road and are now heading towards you on the pavement on your side of the road!

When all's done and ended, here's your takeaway point: Yield what you consider to be your sovereign territory as gracefully as you possibly can because actually – it's not your pavement at all. So, either make the effort to get out of the way (not put your head down and charge whilst thinking that they should jolly well get out of your way) or pass on the same pavement whilst keeping your breath and muttered imprecations to yourself as much as possible (not stopping in front of them like some crazy Gandalf-like character and demanding that they get off your blooming path). Or – just turn around and walk the other way.

Then, of course, you should go straight home, raid your emergency chocolate stash and then throw yourself onto your bed and vow never to go out of the house again until that gosh-darned plague has well and truly gone from your shores.

And that's all we have time for today. Tune in next time for more How to tips and tricks. Until then – Yield Well.