This one is out of the book I mention, '7 Habits of Highly Effective People' by Stephen Covey.
The story, and it is a bit dark (so bare with me), but a man is on a train back from work reading a newspaper. There are two boys running up and down the cart, pretty wild, loud, distracting people on their daily commute home. Jumping on seats, sliding down the poles, knocking into people. He watched and discovered their father sitting, staring into space not giving it any attention. He eventually grew with anger and thought "this father has no discipline, why will he not control his kids, if I were him...". So he finally got up and approached the father. "Excuse me sir, but your children and disrupting the entire train, can you please get them under control and ask them to calm down". The father seemed to wake up from a blank stare as if he was asleep with his eyes open. The father replied "I am so sorry, we just left the hospital and their mother passed, I don't know what to do".
He went from anger to completely understanding of the situation, and became so empathetic to reply "oh my... how can I help!? What can I do? Would you like to have dinner brought to your home tonight, how can I help you?".
The point is - you never know what people are going through. Perception is reality, sure. But you have to stop and think "what I see is one thing, but what I don't know is another". First ask to understand before trying to be understood.
This is such a powerful message to me and I see this daily in my business and in my personal life. A car speeding down the road - "what a jerk, slow down!". Is he on the way to the hospital with his wife bleeding in the car? How about you merge over and let them pass instead of road rage.
A bad server at a restaurant. Maybe his/her life long family dog passed this morning and her boss was short handed and couldn't let her take the day off to grieve.
You never know what it is, so don't make assumptions. Just know people are doing what they are for a reason. Maybe it is what you think it is - stupidity, ignorance, carelessness, anger, disrespect, etc. But, maybe it is not. So why spread negativity to you, those around you, and let them control your emotions. Take a step back, remember a paradigm shift in thinking, and readjust your attitude. Which is the only thing you can actually control.
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