Last week, a man sat next to me on the BART. Immediately he asked me to move my leg out of his space, even though my leg was right around the border between our seats. I felt some unsettled energy between us, so I decided to engage him by bantering about the weather, then asking him what he did for work. We chatted, and he soon apologized for "being rude" -- this surprised me! He said he had some previous bad experiences on BART -- an older woman pulled a knife to his neck because he yelled at her to be quiet; a man would not move his bag out of an empty seat, so the man I spoke with moved it for him. I recognized aloud the frustration of these situations and said that while I may want to change another person's behavior, I don't have the authority to do so, and I don't know what is going on with that person (he may be facing hardship). This perspective seemed to land with this fellow, and I departed the train telling him that I hoped that he would help lots of people at work. I'm glad that I stayed present and engaged the unsettled energy with this man, even though I had no idea why I felt this energy.