If a stranger needs directions and you’re in a hurry, stop anyway. The detour is who you are.

Character usually gets tested at inconvenient moments, because convenience is exactly what removes the test. Being helpful with an empty afternoon is pleasant and proves very little. Stopping when you are already late is where you learn whether other people register as real to you or only as scenery between your appointments.

Next time somebody needs thirty seconds you do not have, give the thirty seconds. You will almost never end up as late as you feared. And you get to be someone who stops, which compounds quietly over years.