Jeffrey brushed quickly past an elderly woman waiting on the platform ahead of him to get onto the subway. He wanted to be sure to get a seat to read his Financial Times. As the train screeched out of the station, he lifted his head from business news and stared at the man directly across from him.

A fierce wave – a tsunami – of antipathy came over him. Jeffrey knew this man, knew him all too well.

Their eyes locked.

As the train reached full speed, the ruckus of speeding wheels against the winding rails and a wildly gyrating subway car filled Jeffrey’s ears. To this frenetic beat, Jeffrey effortlessly listed in his head all the reasons this man, whose eyes he stared coldly into, was an anathema to him.

He had climbed the upper echelons of his Wall Street firm using an imperious manner with his subordinates, always making sure everyone knew he was the boss.

Despite his impoverished upbringing, he had become ostentatious. Flush with cash from the lucrative deals he had made on Wall Street, he had purchased a yacht and a home in Versailles. He used neither. But, oh, how he liked to say he had them. Meanwhile, Jeffrey knew, this man’s parents were on the verge of being evicted from their run-down tenement apartment in the South Bronx.

What bothered Jeffrey most about this man was that he never even attempted to make amends for his evil ways.

Could this man change? Jeffrey did not know. He could try though.

The train screeched to Jeffrey’s stop at Battery Park. He gave the man one last hard look. “See you around,” he mumbled to himself. And he knew would, because Jeffrey had been glaring at his own reflection in the subway window.

It would take years of hard work and therapy, but Jeffrey would one day notice this man again on the train and marvel at what a kinder person he had become.