On Being Annoying, Part 1

One of the funny elements about complaining as a way of managing anxiety…is that when someone points out we’re complaining or being negative, we actually DENY we’re complaining at all.  I mean, that’s funny.  We people are funny.

*Woman A: “The way the seating is arranged in this restaurant is really stupid.”

*Woman B: “There you go, complaining.”

*Woman A: “No I’m not.  I just think they could do what they are doing better.”

     **Man: “I bet your sister is going to bring that slimy carrot and orange Jello salad, again.”

     **Woman: “There you go, being negative before we even get there.”

     **Man: “I’m not being negative, I just making the observation that your sister has brought the same disgusting salad to every meal since I’ve been in the family.”

 Or my personal favorite ‘gripe and deny’ method—

      ***Woman: “I can’t believe you wore that to the party.”

      ***Man: “There you go, being negative.”

      ***Woman: “No, I’m not. I’m just trying to help.”

Variations on the Complaining Re-direct include:

      Person A:  “There you go being negative.”

      The ‘Popeye Response’:  “I y’am the way I y’am.”  or,   The Competitive Complaining Response: “You’re the one keeping me awake last night going on about your sister.”

Part Two on Complaining as a way of Annoying People … will give you the chance to determine your dominant complaining method.  For now, let’s understand how negative remarks change our lives.  Remember we people are not just funny, we are predictable.  We move toward positive experiences; we move away from punishing experiences. 

Let’s say each of us is surrounded by a bubble of atoms or air we’ll call our atmosphere.  Our ‘atmosphere’ often overlaps with others so that we have sort of a couple or a group ‘atmosphere’.  Each word and expression has a plus or minus quality that jiggles the atoms either in a ‘feel better’ way or a ‘feel worse’ way.  Or, think of the ‘atmosphere’ as having a plus or minus rating on a graph, such as the kind used to follow the ups and downs of a stock.  Every expression, every word, ticks the line on the graph up or down…sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. 

This means, as we study the art of negativity further, we can choose how to affect the systems of which we are a part.  Our Emotional Guidance System, however, does not agree.  That wimpy tyrant exaggerates the influence of others… “You made me depressed, angry, and complaining.”  And minimizes personal choice…. “After he complained about me, I did what I had to do.  I drove my motor cycle into a ditch.”

Note: Okay, I hear you five star complainers out there already saying:  “But whyis the ambience, the ‘feel’ of my relationship altered just because I point out a problem?…It shouldn’t be….He should be tougher….No one should be bothered by what I say….Oh, and you shouldn’t be correcting me. You should be paying more attention to your own negative behavior.” …….All of which is COMPLAINING, by the way.

Could we humans be any funnier? 

Since complaining…that someone is complaining….is actually complaining….

Dateline:  We return to American 875, DFW to Cabo San Lucas and the  Rude Woman in Seat 20B.

As we left our story… (See previous entry on Rude Woman in Seat 20B)…..The RW has planted herself in 20B Exit Row Aisle across from her husband in 20C.  A not-too-with-it flight attendant, in a rush to get the plane off, has shushed the Nice Lady who’d approached the RW saying that RW was in her seat….

And now we’re in the air and you’re thinking things will settle, right? Oh…but, no.   

The Nice Lady who actually has a boarding pass showing her seat assignment in 20B again approaches the RW, showing her the ‘evidence’ and asking, nicely, if perhaps if there has been an error.

Rude Wife responds:  “Oh, I have a seat  up there somewhere…” she says and flutters her hand toward a middle seat up front.  “But, I’m sitting here instead because I want to sit near my husband (Rude Husband in 20D).  Now, if we’d known exactly what sort of liveliness Rude Husband had planned to inflict on those nearby….Nice Lady might have been glad to desert the scene.

Nice Lady tried again. “But, that’s my seat.”

Rude Wife responds, “Well, I’m sitting here because I want to sit here because we are traveling together.”

What?   Nice Lady recognizes that the RW’s boorishness has out-trumped her willingness to cause a scene. Receiving no help from the exhausted flight attendants running double and triple shifts on the holiday…Nice Lady fades into the rows at the front of the plane.  So, now we sit back, right?

Nuuuuu.  Rude Wife who has bullied her way into Seat 20B…now turns to Nice Lady #2 who is seated next to her in 20A, Aisle on the window…and get this...stay with me…this is hard to believe…R.W. says to Nice Lady #2 in 20B: “Say, would you mind switching seats with one of my friends in 12E or 14E.  I want to have my friend sit next to me.”  Remember, I’m tapping keys as we fly, so these are quotes.

“I really don’t want to move,” Nice Lady #2 says. “I appreciate the extra leg room on this aisle and I’d rather not squeeze into a middle seat.”  (Though before it’s all over, after Rude Woman and Rude Husband are joined by a gang of Rude Friends, Nice Woman #2 will give up her seat and gladly.)

“Well, I don’t understand why you won’t help me out. I want to sit with my friends,” RW whines.  Now, as RW and Rude Husband have not been successful in clearing out the entire premium aisle to accommodate their group…the RH and RW kick up the action by yelling back and forth to their friends in the front of the plane.  The poor couple who’d held their ground (sort of ) in 20 Center and Window next to the husband cringe and lean heavily toward the window.

Sweet Lady #1, the legal occupant of 20B, understandably, hasn’t appreciated how the situation was handled by the flight attendant and calls the attendant’s attention to what actually transpired.  The flight attendant asks Rude Wife if she is in her assigned seat.  She lies bigtime, “Oh, yes. I’m in my seat across the aisle from my husband….I’ve lost my boarding pass.”

The over-worked flight attendants slip away to do beverage service.  And to the amazement of her audience, Rude Wife stands up and takes off for the front of the plane.  Special Person and I, along with those in the surrounding seats, breathe a sigh of relief and appreciation.  We’d misjudged RW.  And now,  here RW was doing the right thing, heading back to take her assigned seat…Right?  Ha.

RW returns to her seat (wait…not really her seat).  RW is clearly hacked.  Rude Wife rings her Flight Attendant Call button and the flight attendant returns.  RW is shouting that the flight attendant in First Class was rude to her and she wants to file a report. (Yeah…I know…sheesh.)  The flight attendant says, “No, ma’m.  The flight attendant in First Class was correct.  You cannot just re-seat yourself in First Class because there happens to be an empty seat.”

Rude Wife argues the point and insists on a complaint form.  Rude Husband says to the flight attendant, “As long as you’re here, how about coming back with a couple of beers?”  The flight attendant points out that RH and RW have already been served and she needs to provide drink service first to those on the plane who haven’t had anything.  RH points out he doesn’t care and waves a five dollar bill in her face.

At this point, Nice Lady#2 in 20A, window, deeply regrets holding her ground in the premium seat as she is squashed into the side of the plane with RH and RW yelling over her to their friends. She leaves for any seat away from these brutes.  RW, laughing at how she “showed her”,  hollers at her friends in those middle seats to come on back. One comes to fill 20A and three others plant themselves in the aisle. 

Can’t it get more absurd?  Why it can.  After the second drink service, one of the beleagered flight attendants took a quick run up front and snagged a leftover first class meal. He’s heading back for a much needed short rest on the jump seat in the galley…when…as he passed Rude Husband grabs  the flight attendant’s elbow and demands a hot meal for himself and RW.  The flight attendant explains that there is no meal service in coach and the meal was for his lunch. That he’d been up since six that morning (it’s now eight at night) without a real break or a meal.  The flight attendant promises to return with more beers after his break.  Not good enough for ole RH.  He wants a full meal and he wants it now or he wants another one of those claim forms to fill out.

At this point, Special Person and I are trying to overhear where RH, RW, and their several Rude Friends are staying.  Just in case we need to change our reservations away from whichever hotel the Rude Gang are planning on taking over.

Maybe we should stay on the plane to Puerto Vallarta, just to be safe, we’re thinking. Or, Costa Rica is nice this time of year. 

A certain sadness rises with the thought that somewhere back in the US, there could be RH and RW offspring, young people who will no doubt end up burdening the prison system… and be glad for the opportunity to be housed with felons over contact with their Rude Family

Dateline:  Hilton Branch Office, Las Vegas, Nevada.  For lead in to this post see “When Does Escaping Anxiety Work?”

Setup:  It is the last night of a several day trip during which I have been involved with others up and down the Strip, fun, but now I’m tired and looking forward to a couple of nights on my own off Strip in more luxury.  It’s three in the afternoon and, as I drag my luggage on the monorail,  I’m thinking fondly of my upcoming lovely late lunch with my computer at Hilton’s Paradise Café.  

I arrive at the hotel, dump my luggage and head for the Paradise Cafe.  It’s closed until five.  I pace outside, occasionally waving at cafe staff readying to open.  I’m the first one in, and ‘yes’ I could sit in the perfect booth. Ahhh. I flipped open the computer and studied the menu.  I would have the shrimp cocktail and fried shrimp.  I was ready for a couple of hours of editing and seafood…what everyone looks forward to in Vegas, right? 

(For more ideas on what to do in Las Vegas,see the Tourist Tips coming out with Jessica LeFave’s next adventure….What?   Are you thinking that anyone who’d think seafood and computer for two hours represents a good time in Vegas couldn’t possibly have any juicy ‘Tourist Tips’?…There’s a whole section on ‘How to Spot and Follow a Call Girl’, so there.)

But, alas, my joy in the perfect booth with shrimp x two was not to be.  The waitress stepped up to my booth, glared at my computer, and mentioned she’d seen me lurking around waiting for the Cafe to open and didn’t appreciate it….since, to her, the café opening signaled her return to a life of angry, indentured servitude.  I stayed on task.  I ordered the shrimp cocktail and the fried shrimp, asking her if she could wait on putting in the fried order for a while.

“Do What?” the displeased waitress asked.  “You want me to do what?”  I repeated my outrageous request.  She said, “What did you think I was going to do?  You ordered a shrimp cocktail.  I will bring you your shrimp cocktail and at that time I will place your entrée order.”

Well pooty.  I’m disappointed with the atmosphere, but then I’m an approval freak.  And, heck, I must have learned something from teaching all those anxiety management classes…I control what goes on inside my chest cavity….I couldn’t possibly be so ‘pourous’ that one unhappy waitress who clearly hates me and everyone like me….could put a blip in my day…”  

The less than wonderful-for-twenty dollars shrimp cocktail arrives.  Then, three minutes laterthe fried shrimp show up…in a BASKET…tiny little things, like fried catapillers crawling on a pile of soggy fries.   Okay.  Boo. Hiss.  What to do?   What to do?  Does mysteryshrink manage her anxiety and make the best of the situation?  Does making the best of the situation result in food poisoning and a basket phobia?

I looked inside my head for direction.  Both my ‘feelings’ and my ‘thoughts’ begged to direct my behavior.  Which side won?

 

The way I see it, each of us has plenty of uncomfortable situations we cannot, and actually, do not want to avoid.  Situations and relationships that our BEST THINKING tells us we’d better grow up and manage ourselves, if we are to have a long and positive life.

The situations requiring us to “get over it” and manage our anxiety are many, including physical illness and discomfort (yep, we all get sick)…aging (yep, that, too, even if hours at the gym and a little help from the surgeon delays reality)…friends who are not at their best, anxious family members, the anxiety that comes with learning new skills or meeting new people, war, elections, colonoscopies, dental work…the give and take that makes for a solid long-term marriage…

These situations require us to grow rather than run.  And there are plenty of them.

But, then, there’s the occasional uncomfortable situation when we can simply escape rather than grow up.  Now, of course, I’d like to be the Buddha, I’d like to say I am now, or think I could at some point in the future be, completely in charge of my anxiety…that I can or hypothetically could…respond to discomfort, criticism, and all the hard parts of reality without experiencing painful anxiety…but that’s not going to happen… it’s a journey…

Given the non-Buddha probability, a little skill in figuring out when you can afford to duck…that is, when ‘ducking’ has no significant long-term downside….and when ‘ducking’ an unpleasant situation is going to come back to bite you…or peck you.

Which situations can you afford to ‘escape’ or ‘make go away’ with money or a little extra slippery effort?

Example:  When you are on a full flight and an unusually tall or expansive person is assigned the seat next to you…this is one of those situations you’re best off to call on your skills of managing anxiety. 

However, if you are seated in an uncrowded movie theater and an unusually tall person sits down in front of you, all that’s necessary to relieve your discomfort is a little extra effort on your part. 

Of course, your move could still tie you in a knot if you’re not at the theater alone and the other person disagrees with your decision to move… or takes the moment to recite all the ways you are too demanding.  In this situation your decision to escape has sparked an anxiety in your movie-going pal.  If you and your movie-going pal had an argument on the way to the movie, or if your movie-going pal is hungry, the counter-move, sometimes called a ‘change back’ move can be more intense.

Last night I had one of those ‘tall guy sits in front of you at the movies’ events occurred.  And a chance for an example was born. 

Right there in the glitz of Las Vegas.  Yes, even Vegas is no more than fodder for the struggle between the Emotional Guidance System and the Thinking Guidance System….Maybe Las Vegas was the place the Emotional Guidance System was born.

Next Las Vegas, the Playground of the rich and anxious….and the just anxious.

The ‘Woman Who Didn’t Stop at the Bathroom’ Incident–

Dateline:  Willie’s Place, I-35 between Dallas and Austin.  If I can’t get a grip at Willie’s Place, I might as well just jerk that license off the wall and give up the pretense. 

Hail to those of you tagging along on this rickety journey toward growing up just a wee little bit.  Now, friends, we begin an examination of  HOW MUCH of WHO WE ARE is  the result of CHOICE and how much is no more than our automatically acting and re-acting in TO KEEP OTHER PEOPLE CALMED DOWN.

Figuring out when we are using our BEST THINKING and when we are doing the please CALM DOWN JIG is not an easy task.  Because the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is not just a big fat liar, the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is tricky.                                                                                                                                            U                                                           

Sometimes we make a choice against what we think…we say “Yes” when we mean “No”  (this usually involves some sort of volunteering) or “No” when we mean “Yes” (This often involves FEAR).

We  react automatically …because we pick up on the choice an important other person wants us to make….and the relief of going along FEELS like we’ve made a thoughtful choice.  Example:  a woman says to her husband, “I have decided to take up mountain biking.”  The husband says, “What?”and proceeds to outline the costs, dangers, and generally  neglect of others…should the woman persist with the mountain biking idea. 

For a while she struggles.  Then she gives up the idea.  The tension in the couple goes down.  The woman eats a pie and criticizes the man next door for leaving the lid off his trashcan.  The whole neighborhood is ruined!

The relief experienced when ‘going along’  FEELS  like we’ve made an actual choice.  This sort of capitulating may look noble, but there’s nothing brave  about deciding that the best way to stay calm yourself is by doing whatever will keep the other person calm. 

Of course, after studying the costs, dangers, and time required the woman could have opted out of mountain biking following her own BEST THINKING.  I’m just saying the glory of ‘relief’ makes it hard to tell ‘why’ a particular decision is made.

Now, about the woman who thought she needed to make a bathroom stop and over-ruled herself .  Oops, here’s my chicken-fried steak.  Tune in tomorrow to hear the exciting adventure of ‘Go-Along-Woman.’

Back in the ‘woo-woo-far-out-living-for-the-moment’ days…the notion that each person draws to her what she needs was bandied about.  Not being the easy-to-woo-woo type, I didn’t buy the idea right away. 

Yet, I couldn’t help but notice that the same day I decided to go to Spain, the woman in the next booth was telling her lunch mate about her trip to Spain, Spanish language magazines started being sold at the grocery store, and Univision carried the Astro games.

I couldn’t help but notice that when I made up my mind that driving home from my in-laws…I would point out one thing my mother-in-law did that I hadn’t appreciated…rather than start in with my usual self ego-massaging fear-based criticism…as if to remind my special person that he was better off married to me than deciding to go back home and live with his mother.  I know, pretty bleak, but why pull any punches?

Dr. L awaits those who need a psychologist who has never made a mistake and was born knowing everything.

What happened, with Spain and my mother-in-law, of course, was that a little pathway into my brain… sealed shut earlier…and not necessarily for any bad reason…a little pathway opened up to receive new information about the world.  And a new world opened.

What does opening a little pathway in your mind have to do with the Rugby Coach Who Changed the World?  Am I hoping to open a little pathway?   You betcha?

Picture a rugby coach.  Now add that this man is the rugby coach for Texas A and M University, a school not that long ago all men and all military trained. (If you have any doubts regarding the stringent masculine, tough-guy reputation of Texas A and M…catch a football game sometime and watch the all male cheerleaders in their hospital whites urging on the crowd with jerky motions, a show best described as what the Karate Kid would look like fighting his way out of coma.)

The rugby coach is on a plane from Missouri back to Texas.  A woman from Austin sits down next to Coach on the plane, a stack of ink-still-damp brochures on her lap.  And this woman is about to change the rugby coaches life forever…Tune in tomorrow  to find out what happened between the rugby coach and the lady…

But what if I find someone better? …the attractive high school senior asked.  People told him he was a great catch, and most girls would have glowed in his letter jacket.  He had a girlfriend and he’d just confessed that maybe he was in love.   

But he was not a happy fellow.  He obsessively worried that if he made a commitment, even for a month… as soon as  he’d made his move, he’d meet someone prettier, cooler, smarter…someone who’d turn even more heads when she was on his arm.  What the heck was he going to do then?

Ah, yes.  Here is one of the tricks of our old life-sucking enemy, the…you guessed it…the Emotional Guidance System(If you’re not familiar with the terms, search Guidance System on this site.).  One of the ways that Master of Anxiety Building…gets in the way of living.

The name of this trick is:  Exaggeration of  the Alternatives.  The trick has two parts.  The first is simple exaggeration…If I choose A, and learn later that B would have been a better dd choice…Well, that would be awful, terrible, and I can’t stand it!    From now on my only choice is to complain and fret.

Sound trivial?  Hey, don’t tell me you aren’t disappointed when you pick the slowest checkout line in the grocery…again.  And the drive-in bank.  Do you not, everytime, end up behind the guy who doesn’t do his paperwork until he’s number one in line?  What about choosing a job?  Or a career…Do you know anyone saying, “Oh, what I could have, should have done?”  And what about choosing that special person?… What if?  What could have been?

The second important feature of this trick of the EGS…happens because when we live by “What if?“ … “If only…” …and this is the really BIG PIECE. …The Emotional Guidance System, driven to accomplish one thing…get rid of immediate anxiety   …The really dirty part of the EGS trick…

Is that when we focus on the notion that the most important thing is making the RIGHT CHOICE…we are lost to the present.  We are obsessed with the past…”Why didn’t I see this was the wrong choice.”  And, we are obsessed with the future.  “Oh, no.  Woe is me!  Because I made the wrong choice…my future is a mess…and there’s nothing I can do.  Nothing…

We are in a VICTIM position.  We focus on what could have been…in our imagination…and do not pour our energies into what we have.   We spend time being critical of others, critical of ourselves.  “Here I sit, having made the WRONG CHOICE and there’s nothing I can do.”  

The EGS would have us invest our energy in these ‘worrying’ mess rather than dedicate ourselves to the PRESENT.

The Emotional Guidance System is never in favor of ‘doing the best we can with what we have’.  The EGS wants an easier way out than the effort it takes to deal with the present moment.

Think about that one.  I mean, since the present moment is all we have.  Wouldn’t it be a good idea to give the present our attention?

Is it possible our day, our relationship, our career is as great as we make it?  How about Now?…And Now….Whoops…missed a chance….How about now?

“Hi.  I’m in here.  Are you out there?”

Mysteryshrink’s You-Get-What-You-Pay-For Psychological Tip:  Comparing yourself to wildlife can provide excellent excuses for your bizarre behavior.  In general people feel possitively about the creatures of the forests and the trees…here’s how you can cash in.

Now, the wildlife comparison technique works best if you have already informed people, that, indeed you are nuts.  As a refresher, the rest of your life will go much more pleasantly if you will cease and desist from further defending yourself as a sane person.  Let it go.

When someone says–

What’s wrong wrong with you?  Why do you do it that way?  How could you think like that?  How could you possibly have made the same mistake eight times?

Squench your face into a ‘very puzzled’ expression and answer:  “Because…I think I’ve figured it out…it’s because I’m crazy and I’m getting worse!”

Comparing yourself to wildlife works in all sorts of situations.  When you show up late to an event, you can say:  At least I’m not a middle-aged Schnauzer.  Did you know they sleep twenty hous  a day?  At least I’m not sea slug.  Did you know they can impreganate themselves?  At least I’m not river rat. Did you know they can get up to twenty pounds? 

Now, about the chipmunks.  (This part about chipmunks is factual, the above is just wild guesses, but facts matter so little when you’re defending yourself.)  Chipmunks bury nuts all the time in all sorts of places. However, their memories are only good for three days.  Lucky for the chipmunks, many tend to live in the same areas.  Thus, many of the nuts the chipmunk finds and eats were left by other chipmunks who’d forgotten where they’d buried them… just as  the feasting chipmunk’’s poorly remembered efforts were providing forgotten nuts for others.  Pretty neat system, eh?

Now to the most recent opportunigy for comparing self to wildlife to distract from bizarre behavior.  I’ve been traveling a lot lately (this is my human-based excuse).  Last week, I was returning to town on a Wednesday, thus scheduled a slate of appointments for Thursday.  Groggy and achey, I woke up Thursday and steeled my body with an Excedrin triple-shot.  My special person wished me well as he left for his regular Wednesday bridge game.  After he left, I showered and dressed in what would have to pass for professional togs.

Then I realized that my special person had just left for his WEDNESDAY bridge game.  And, pow!  Right there in front of me was one of those bonus…I didn’t hide it…nuts!  I didn’t put the day aside, I didn’t sacrifice, I didn’t trade a nut for a nut.  I just stumbled on a free nut!

Dateline: American Airlines flight from DFW to Indianapolis.
Emotional Status: Low. Emotional Guidance System in complete control. I feel like…think that…I don’t want to go to Indianapolis for six days. Slipping into an emotional swimming pool of exaggeration…I’m quite sure every moment of the trip will be a pain and I likely will never recover from the experience. So that’ the back story. Now. The challenge. I’m thinking about ‘decisions’ as I’m writing on decision making…
The flight is late. I lurk around the ticket counter trying to decide if I want to spring for an upgrade. And why would I cough up an extra hundred dollars for a two hour flight? Why because I’m on the edge and I’m hungry.
I ask and learn there is one seat left in first class if I want to upgrade…I wonder down the concourse, my stomach twisting with the decision. I find a Blue Mesa Fast Taco. I have three.
The urge to upgrade is gone. As I board the plane, I pass the empty first class seat. The ajacent seat is occupied with one of the largest men I’ve ever seen. He has two scotch minis on his tray.

I settle into my seat in the exit row. The middle next to me remains empty.
I am a WINNER! I guessed right. I have superpowers!
How pathetic is that? When your Emotional Guidance System is in charge…life is really scary. If the plane had been on time, I would have upgraded, and been a wreck because I guessed wrong. Life isn’t easy when you live it as a weenie.

How much trouble can a person get into by speaking ‘off the top of his head’ to a televsion reporter?

Doesn’t talking  ’off the top of your head’  boil down to simply blithering random words as they pop into consciousness?  Yes, ‘off the top of your head’ can, and often does mean, talking without using your head at all.  Using the Thinking Guidance System,you recall, means taking into acount the LONG TERM effects of your actions.

Which brings us to the ’Talkative Guy in Bicycle Shorts Incident’

A few weeks ago, a husband, obviously in the grip of his Emotional Guidance System…shot and killed his wife while she was packing up to leave him.  Now, the actions of the murderer guy aren’t even the actions we’re talking about, but admittedly a good example of not taking LONG TERM effects into consideration. 

But, jump ahead, if you will, to the reporter for a local television station who travelled to the small town outside Austin where the murder happened to provide that ‘on the spot’ illusion for the five o’clock story.

The little town hosting the murder is a rural haven left over from when the railroad first came through that part of Texas, though a few Austinites have moved to Red Rock to fulfill dreams of pastoral peace and to ride their bike instead of burning fossil fuels like the lesser forms of humanity. But, mostly Red Rock is a ranching and agricultural enclave.  Our lively television reporter arrives in Red Rock ready to take the pulse of the townspeople. 

Most of the town’s residents were busy with target practice, baking pies, and herding longhorns, but our reporter did find one unoccupied Red Rock resident who happened to be one of the Austin-transplants, a spry fellow riding his bike.  Somehow the reporter didn’t notice that Red Rock regular residents don’t ride ten-speeds and they certainly don’t wear flashy bicycle pants and bodysuit tops…or red and green banana helmets or earrings, or scraggly beards.  

Our reporter has the camera going and needed just the one clip to go with his story of the murder.  Thus, his brief interview of the guy in bicycle shorts (GIBS)  would come and go in his life without causing undo harm.  The guy in the bicycle shorts, I fear, was not so lucky.

Because, you see, when the reporter asked the GIBS, “Do you find it hard to believe that a murder like this could happen in such a pleasant little town?”

The grinning GIBS looks right into the camera and says,  “Not really.  This town is full of POT-BELLIED, KNUCKLE-DRAGGING REDNECKS.”

Did I mention he LIVED in amongst the people he just so colorfully described?  Or, at least he did.

Now before we get started here, I should describe my effort to engage my THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM and let go of something I cannot change. I am giving up arguing with and spewing sarcasm to the ‘virtual people’  (recorded voices, used by any company with more than one employee) trapping me into playing ‘Voice Recognition Hell’.  You know, I say, “Jerry’s Bar and Grill,” and cheerful virtual person says, “Jerrold Barbill?  Did I get that right?”…I am giving up the fight, joining technological reality… Now on to the elementary view.

We humans like to control our space.  Maybe it’s an evolutionary element…maybe those who best managed to get take care of their space …survived.

Now, wait a sec, this doesn’t mean you get to walk on other people’s toes and blame it on evolution.  We have a ‘fight or flight’ stress response hanging around in our psyche to save us from saber-toothed tigers, too.  And, just like our stress response is not all that useful…  (How many times in your life will you actually be called upon to lift a car off a person?)

…Our little desire (desperate need) to control our space can do more harm than good in our lives.  Which brings us to the six houses across from the elementary school and the people who live there.  Houses in the area around the school have sweeping St. Augustine front yards.  Every school day, carloads of parents and children park along the curb across from school. In the morning, parents are busy covering last minute reminders, kids are searching for backpacks, and sliding out of the cars. Every afternoon parents return loading talking kids into cars. Morning and night neighborhood children close enough to walk to school converge from all directions.

So where’s the problem?  Several years ago, one of the home owners with the elementary school view decided to reclaim the slightly beaten down St. Augustine along the curb in front of the house. He or she put up a homemade sign– cardboard tacked to a ruler…which read: “Please stay off the grass.”

The sign was beaten to the turf with the first car door swinging open.  A few days later a larger sign, still cardboard and a Sharpie, but this time nailed to a stake from Home Depot, replaced the first effort.  The homeowner’s efforts stirred the hearts of others along the street who had suffered the patter of little St. Augustine. Two other signs popped up…to no avail.

Homeowner number one then sticks two signs along the curb, this time printed in RED Sharpie.  His or her fellow protesters next door followed suit. Still the kids with more on their mind did not notice the signs.  Blades of grass were trampled.  Little lives were not changed.

Next, the homeowner surrounds the contested strip along the curb with a low white wire Home Depot fence.  Children think the little fence is fun to hop.  More signs, more little wire fences….Until today.  Today the distressed homeowner put up a two foot high white wire fence….about 50 feet long and two feet wide….think about it…this is really ugly…and the homeowner has planted spindly shrubs close together along the fifty feet of weird looking white picket fence.  Children do not step on homeowner’s lawn.

Can we say the homeowner has won?  How much time and money and stomach lining has gone into this project?  Are you glad, as I am that I am not the spouse of the obsessed one?  Can you imagine the evening conversations?

Oh, and yes, I have to say it…the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is that part of us that can convince us to persist in a LOSING ACTIVITY.  The THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM…is telling us we can’t win this battle….or, that if we do win….(the homeowner still has the ‘sit out in the yard every morning and night with a shotgun’ strategy)…the victory will not be worth the cost.

Marriage and having siblings usually awaken us to the skill of ceding territory…but not always.  We can’t have our territory OUR WAY all the time and share the planet or house with other people.  I’ve awarded my special person the edges of the bed for his shoes…I thought of the ‘sitting watch with a shotgun’ ploy, but he’s sneaky, he’d distract me somehow.  My picture of the world has all shoes in the closet.  I do not get everything I want.

Now, as for giving up territory…let’s talk about Crazy Dog and her pushy ways….

Now just about any time a guy bungees off the Rio Grande Bridge in New Mexico…I’ve got to figure his Emotional Guidance System had something to do with that decision.  I can think of no fact-based reason to make such a jump and I can think of about a million fact-based reasons making such a jump is a really bad idea.

One of which is what happened to the guy in the tape I just watched.  The guy that jumped off the bridge….and ever-so-slightly miscalculated the distance from the bridge to the rocks.  Turns out the drop was about twenty feet less than figured…not that you’d expect two guys into this sort of thing to be math geniuses.

So, yes, John, the buddy taping the jump is heard saying something like this, “And there goes Andy!  What a thrill! What a leap!  You da man!……..Oh, God….I just watched Andy die.”  Pan to a blob of jeans and orange jacket on the rocks below.  (Now, I don’t know how you are with your friends, but I have to say…I’m a little troubled that buddy John continues the taping and the play-by-play.)

Later, John is videotaping his bud, Andy, this time from his hospital bed.  John says, “I knew I shouldn’t jump that day, I knew something wasn’t right (so far, we still have the Thinking Guidance System trying to stay in charge)….but then, (here’s where the Emotional Guidance System adds its two cents)…but then…it’s just that we’d driven all that way to get there and everything…”

The point here is that when we decide to do something or to keep doing something just because we’re so far in we don’t want to admit that all the effort thus far has been for naught…that’s our Emotional Guidance System blabbing and blabbing.  Which is how I explain ending up in this hideously over-crowded, over-priced restaurant in some tiny Colorado town over a hundred miles from where I intended to stop for lunch.  I’d driven north from Denver thinking (?) I’d find just what I had in mind…a lodge-looking mountain kind of place with excellent steaks and college football on at least two screens…on the outskirts of the city.

When I didn’t find the lodge/sports bar on the outskirts, I thought…I should turn around because I very hungry…but then saw the sign for Boulder…I thought what the heck…For sure, there’ll be a lodge/sports bar in Boulder…When I didn’t, I thought, I should turn around because I’m starting to get faint with hunger…which made me crave that steak even more….

And, there was the sign pointing to Estes Park which is on the edge of the Rocky Mountain National Park…There’s got to be a lodge/sports bar in Estes Park…what the heck, what’s another thirty-five miles….Of course, I hadn’t factored in the car hauling the double trailer about twenty cars ahead of me that never went over 18 miles per hour.

Thus weak and shaking I arrive in Estes Park….to discover that the place is over-run with tourists in town for Octoberfest (Yes, I noticed it was still September, too.)…I thought, hey, I should just cut my losses, chew another stick of gum and go back to Boulder or even Denver…then I thought “it’s just that I’d driven all that way…” and here I am a hundred miles from my hotel eating corn dogs standing up…

The point:  When you realize you aren’t absolutely sure your bungee cord is shorter than the distance to the rocks, settle for any ole café on the way out of town.

Can AVOIDANCE sometimes be a mistake, even when… factually…every attempt has ended in disaster?

Yes.  Now, I’m not talking about the street tacos in Mexico City or risking your life and endangering the lives of others by continuing to take shots at sliding all-lovely off the ski lift chair… those activities we can do without rather easily.  (See previous post on dangers of tacos and chair lifts.)

But… what about when we are telling ourselves we CANNOT ever succeed at an activity and, though we’ve had many painful failures… we’d really like the rewards of that activity? And, when we calm the heck down…the truth is…other people have done it,so it’s possible.  Again, I’m voting against taking another shot at that ski lift chair death trap.  I know other people hop off the lift bench looking like the coolest people alive… and I even accept that, theoretically, given a long life and all winters devoted to the ski lift chair, I, too, could be successful.

To accomplish even complex tasks, all that usually stands between us and success is a little bit of information and the capacity to manage our anxiety through the “I don’t know how to do this” freakout. Now, I’m not suggesting you attempt to fly the plane on your next trip….you COULD…the only thing holding you back is a lack of information….a lack of a really big chunk of information.

But, to return to a task closer to home that has blackened my days, met with unrelenting failure, and yet…I’d really like to be successful.  Oh, yeah.  I’m talking about my pathetic efforts at website building. I really want to build a website.  I’m not done yet.

First, a simpler example of someone coming to the conclusion that a task is impossible due to lack of simple information.

One summer day when my parents were out of the country, they called back from a remote phone in the Alps asking to have certain information located in a file cabinet inside their house faxed to a cruise line address. Usually, this task would be mine.  However, on this fine summer day…defined in Texas as over a hundred degrees and real sweaty…I was unavailable.  Thus, my special person was up to fulfill the request.  Knowing I’d let myself into their house many times, he first spent twenty minutes going through extra keys.  He picked out a dozen possibles from the pounds of keys in the miscellaneous drawer… and headed for the country.

He spent his first thirty minutes and first bucket of perspiration trying each key in the front door lock without success.  Testing for a possible unlocked window led under walls of English ivy growing in layers since the 1950s.  Now he couldn’t breathe and suspected the allergy attack later on would set a new coughing record. He visited the surrounding six houses hoping a neighbor had a key, only to learn that the lady across the street and the couple on one side of the house were still holding grudges regarding certain high school yard decorating mistakes I hadn’t shared with him. Exhausted and out of ideas, he gave up.  He can’t get in.  He’d call a locksmith if his presence in the family photos taken on the lawn… he’d bring along in the morning would be enough proof to that he had the right to enter the house.

When I strolled in later that night, a day earlier than expected, my special person related his afternoon of woe ending with, “I’m glad you’re here since you know where there’s a key that works.”

“Oh, no…” I say.  “I don’t have a key or know where one is.  I just take a screwdriver and ooch back the little dealie, and wha-la, I’m in.”

Today someone gave me the web address of a do-it-yourself website maker “that anyone can do”….and for once…I couldn’t prove them wrong.

What activities have you given up… when all you needed was the right information? And the capacity to manage anxietythrough the learning curve?

Dateline:  Going live here.  Airport, Austin, Texas.  Goal: Chicago and certain unfamiliar spots in eastern Iowa and Illinois.  (I, a product of the hot sidewalks of Falfurrias, Texas, and other near-border villiages, none of which you have ever heard of, I am not disparaging the rural and small town.)

****Remember, I show you my trembling journey because you, too, are working on becoming more of  A SELF-DESIGNED PERSON?  Because you, too, want to better manage the anxiety keeping you in chains and wasting your life?… If this isn’t true… if you don’t have any of these issues…there’s always Dr. Laura.

Random Emotional Guidance System Self-talk:  “I don’t want to go.  I’m too tired.  My special person just had three surgeries in ten days.  (Good surgeries…the kind done to help you function better.)  I’m still not recovered from book launch party as I am congenitally deficit when it comes to hosting crowds….My feet are already are killing me and I didn’t have time to get a pedicure so that my appearance as a street person is complete… I have too much junk to carry…I don’t have any idea where I’m supposed to go…who I’m supposed to meet…and did not I go to graduate school SPECIFICALLY because I’m not good at selling stuff?” 

Emotional Guidance System is now in PRIMAL WHINE mode.

Specific Emotional Guidance System “WHAT IF”  Fear-inducing Statements in order of CRITICAL IMPORTANCE:

1) WHAT IFs concerned with appearing “cool and in-charge”:  (These fearful statements are the fertilizer for ‘blah’ feelings.)

“What if I show up at the book-signing without enough books and come off as silly for going to so much effort?”  Even more tragic, “What if I brought too many books and look silly and amateurish?”… “What if I get a lousy, unimpressive rental car?”  Or worse, “What if Avis only has SUVs left like happened a couple of weeks ago in L.A. and, like then, I underestimate the height of the vehicle and rip out a couple of water pipes out of the ceiling of the Hilton parking garage?  What if I over-react like I did then, back up wildly, and pop off that striped garage entry arm like it was a toothpick?”…  “What if I’m the oldest fattest worst dressed person there…given the chipped toenails and all?”

2} WHAT Ifs concerned with “survival”:  (These fearful statements actually stir up a little energy, though survival is a concern coming in a distant second to the concern to come across cool and sophisticated.) 

“What if I can’t find Galena, Illinois and Dubuque, Iowa?  What if it’s too hot?  What if it’s scary?  What if it’s rush hour traffic when I leave O’Hare in my rental car? What if, if I’m fortunate enough to find Dubuque, but room service is closed down by the time I get there?”

By the way, the need to appear cool and in-charge pretty much ended my ill-fated, short-lived relationship with skiing.  I know, I know…catching the lift seat under your rear is easy (right); and no one crashes off the lift after landing on her face the first four or five times…well, guess what?  I can handle my lack of cool in most circumstances and I looked as hot and with it as anyone else buried in my ski togs, goggles and wooly hat….but….it was the screaming that got to me…not mine…I refused to utter a peep as careened off the lift chair, gave a little swush, then accomplished more triple axels and whirling manuevers than an Olympic figure skater on crack…before sliding on my face until an act of nature ended by journey.  The watchers…the really cool ones…they were screaming in fear.  They screamed, too, everytime I got knocked down by the next lift chair when I tried to get up from my first fall. Bunch of weinnies. 

Okay, Illinois and Iowa.  Here I come.  Be gentle.  My knees are shot.

Each of us has three limited entities–time, energy, and money.  And one boundless entity–love.  Love we can afford to splatter around and we’ll never run out.

How we “use up”  our time, our energy, and our money…is another matter.  How much of your time, your energy, and your money…is thrown away in the service of your Emotional Guidance System?  How much of your time, energy, and money is sacrificed in efforts to rid yourself of anxiety?  (See ‘What Would You Give Not to Feel?)

‘Worrying’ is the king thief of time.  Saying ‘yes’ when we mean ‘no’ and ending up on projects we don’t value takes lots of energy.  And money?  Well, someone’s buying that tape that you place over your chubby spots and it sucks the fat away while you sleep.  Someone’s out there renting a storage locker to escape the anxiety of making decisions.  And, “Yes”  the reason my name is listed with five stars next to it on every company that makes downloadable emergency disk rescue software…is because when my computer crashes in the middle of the night…I thrash around like a big, desperate fish on a sidewalk, clicking “Buy Now” on every rescue offer popping up and promising to save me.    The ‘Water Tower Place Incident’ provides an example of FUSION (when the functioning of one person is determined by the functioning of another person) and how the breakdown of boundaries led to one person (me) almost spending some of my life ‘time’ doing something I had no desire to do.

Dateline: Chicago, a while back, still in graduate school and attending a downtown conference.  Mental state: google-eyed impressed with the opportunity to have my expenses paid in a wonderful, sophisticated city I’d never visited.

Exact place:  I am on the escalator of Water Tower Place, a multi-storied shopping complex with all the best stores…when I realize my physical self has been invaded by the Body Snatchers.  “How did I get here?” I’m asking myself.  “How did I end up on this escalator in a monster shopping mall?”  “This couldn’t be me.  I don’t even like shopping at home, how could I have chosen this place for the afternoon?”  

The fusion:  Earlier that week back in Austin, I’d remarked to a professor–a world-travelled, highly respected researcher and writer, who I greatly over-valued as I did most of my teachers– that I was going to Chicago.  With my excited annoucement, Over-valued World Traveler said, “Oh, you are going to have a great time.  You want to put shopping at Water Tower Place at the very top of your ‘must do’ list!”

I said something like, “Oh, that sounds perfect!  I can’t wait!”  Then it was: fly to Chicago, check into the hotel, and take the first opportunity to check out Water Tower Place.  Had I consulted my Thinking Guidance System, I’d have asked myself, “How did things turn out the last time someone (at least she had been with me, not just in my imagination) talked you into going to a shopping mall?  And I wouldn’t have woken up standing on a crowded escalator wondering how in the hecko I’d gotten there. 

Okay, this example is kind of ‘fusion-lite’, but it’s still fusion.  Fusion of this sort–when you agree with someone because you value them as a person without thinking for yourself–is common.   Careful now, I’m not saying that the ’self-defined’ move…when the professor says ‘you must go shopping at Water Tower Place–is to pop back with “Well, I don’t really don’t enjoy shopping, so I won’t be going to Water Tower Place.”  To respond with an unsolicited negative response is just as much having behavior determined by the other person… as was the ‘unconcious’ following of her advice.

Now, back to … as the stomach turns, we return to the hotel dining room in Kansas City (See Previous Post) … and observe the terribly dangerous and relationship-determining autographing incident.

Not only would I never asked for an autograph, I have made an art out of being next to someone famous and pretending I don’t even notice….breathing normally as if being next to celebrity is such a common experience for me. (I had the opportunity to calmly pretend to read my book at a horseshow while Patrick Swayze stood next to me watching horses warm up in the coliseum in Albuquerque. He’s shorter than you’d think.) And here’s the thing.  My special person says he loves me and I’m thinking he probably does.  And he KNOWS I freak out and get all weird and over-excited around famous people or college basketball players and thus it is very important for me to PRETEND I DON’T NOTICE I’m surrounded by famous people or college basketball players.

My special person knows how I need things to go (I’ve certainly told him often enough) … and, yet, he just goes right on being himself.  Nudging and teasing…chuckling, really.  He really likes me, too, so he thinks I’m kind of cute all nervous like that. I give him the Disapproval Death Stare”, which only makes him giggle, nudge, and he hands me a napkin and a pen…”

My Emotional Guidance System is SCREAMING.  I’m tempted to unleash the EGS monster and claim, “You couldn’t possibly care about me and keep doing this!”  To which he’d likely chortle and say, “What are you going to tell the judge?  That you were the victim of forced autograph getting?”

Here’s my 2 percent victory:  First, I recognized the anxiety before I fired shots at my special person.  I recognized my rising anxiety as something I could handle differently than I had in the past.  Usually, I would go on the offense, “What’s wrong with you?” “You‘re acting like a child.”  “You should not be doing this to me.” 

Instead, I was able to take responsibility for once.  I was quiet (but not pouty) for a few minutes.  I engaged my Thinking Guidance System… The facts: no one cares one way or the other how I conduct myself in a hotel dining room in Kansas City; most people asked for autographs are flattered and don’t consider autograph askers to be hicks and fools; there isn’t a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ behavior code when in the presence of celebrities and college basketball players. … and I was able to say something like, “I really admire the way you are more comfortable in public than I am.  I get all twitchy and weird even thinking about asking for an autograph, but it’s not your fault that I get all anxious.”

Okay, what I said wasn’t that good, but it was in the ballpark.

You get the idea.

First, DIETBABBLE ALERT: New Scientific Breakthrough! The reason you’ve had a hard time losing weight is because you haven’t been eating according to your DNA!  That’s right, folks.  Now you can send in a saliva swab, the “lab” reads your “sample” and POOF… the exciting secret foods you need to avoid will be revealed and the weight just falls off.  Of course, you have to coordinate this amazing scientific breakthrough with dieting according to your blood type and the phases of the moon.

Also, a thermos maker cashing in on “going green” by showing piles of plastic bottles (gallons) lists both ’saving the planet’ and ‘weight loss’ as results you can expect by using the thermos.

Still the favorite in my heart:  the man walking along the beach with a split piece of metal, ending his spiel saying, “And my wife can’t stop talking about the weight I’ve lost since I’ve had my new metal detector.”

Anxiety. How far will you go to push down your anxiety?

It’s interesting to notice that recent celebrity drug deaths are overdoses … not of a drug that would make a person ‘high’… their deaths have not been the result of going too far with a substance known to make a person ‘happy’.  Their deaths have been the result of taking drugs which make a person numb, even unconcious.

Anxiety. 

Anxiety is the fuel and the product of the Emotional Guidance System.  Anxiety is powerful, powerful enough to make a mess of a person’s life.  We are all anxious.  Dogs and cats and cows are anxious, too.  Some dogs chew through doors when left alone, some cats hide even when hungry, cows stampede sometimes.  People chew (overeat), hide (avoid), and stampede (run away), too.

The goal of this mysteryshrink journey we are on is to get a little better hold on anxiety. (See Wildebeest entry)..2 percent…a shift of only 2 percent can improve life experience.

What would happen if you could manage a 2 percent improvement in your ability to manage your anxiety when someone else is saying something that makes you anxious?  Aha!  Of course, no one can “make you anxious”… No one else can even reach your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM button… I was just giving you a little test…

Situation: The spouse and I are having breakfast in Kansas City during the Big Twelve Basketball tournament.  As it happens, several team members are enjoying the same hotel buffet.  My special other, being much better than I at realizing his importance or lack of importance in the world, is nudging me in the shin and teasingly suggesting I make up some story about a young nephew and collect a bunch of Texas Longhorn autographs.  Since my Emotional Guidance System is always ready to exaggerate things, always ready with the caution, ”Don’t call attention to yourself!  People will think you’re crazy! Your complete hick-dom background is going to show and you’ll never recover!  What complete strangers think of you is incredibly important!  A frown from a stranger will ruin your whole day!”  “When your special person does something that he thinks is cute and you think is embarrassing after you’ve TOLD him how he’s supposed to behave to keep you calmed down…his continuing to be himself means he doesn’t love you!” 

Okay, there I am, exposed for the sucker FUSION (See Fusion, think ropes twisted together.)  And how do I FEEL?  To what degree do the actions of another change (signal you to change) what’s going on inside you?

Anxiety 101.  Tune in tomorrow for miraculous 2 percent victory in the terrifying autographing incident!

 

 

Fusion:  the naturally occuring process when what goes on emotionally inside one person is influenced by what is going on inside another person.

Let’s take what happens when one person is angry toward another person.  Fusion is the automatic transfer of anger and upset.  The degree to which this occurs depends on several elements.  One element is how important the angry person is to be person on the receiving end.  

Which leads me to report a minor victory in this project of becoming a person able to function according to my own BEST THINKING, instead of having my functioning TOTALLY DETERMINED by WHATEVER EMOTIONAL CHARGE  is pinging my way.

Now this is a minor victory, but, for me, it’s a start.  Have you ever pulled out on a busy street, in what you thought was plenty of time, only to see, looming in your rear view mirror as you accelerate….a young man in a baseball cap driving a pickup truck jacked up like a rabbit caught in mid-scare on seeing a snake….and the guy in the cap is shooting you the bird?  

 Usually, that sneering face and flicking finger stirs something in me.  Maybe something defensive and angry, like a comment or a hot face.  Sometimes I blame myself and WHAT’S GOING ON INSIDE me is a guilty, a wanna-slink-away sinking feeling.

Here’s the thing.  I got the sneer and the bird twice yesterday and I didn’t FEEL anything.  I only noticed… that I didn’t notice.  It was as if their opinions of my behavior didn’t matter anymore.  …Because their opinions didn’t matter anymore.  I realized my EMOTIONAL Guidance System was a little less in charge.  That my THINKING Guidance System’s statement that… the opinion of random strangers did not need my attention… was running the show.

One small step ahead for my Thinking System and emotional freedom…. maybe not real good news for the driving public.

What if Eagleman’s first possibility for the afterlife (Sum) is what happens?  What if, after you depart this life, what happens is that you are required to live your life over exactly as you did the first time…except now, instead of living experiences in sequential fashion…you have experience events in lumps…thirty years sleeping, fourteen having breakfast…so many arguing… (See “Choosing Life…”)

Four solid years of being lost would be tiring…. But imagine if you had to re-experience every moment you ever spent worrying…if you were required to go through every worry again… in one long, tedious, hand-twisting lump?  Yikes.

Worrying is the handiwork of the Emotional Guidance System since our Thinking Guidance System deals with facts, not “What ifs.”

The Emotional Guidance System burns anxiety for fuel to create more anxiety.  The Emotional Guidance System pokes us with, “What if you are wrong?” 

The Thinking Guidance System looks at that question and the facts.  The Thinking Guidance System says:  “You are probably are wrong a lot.  It’s not that big a deal.”

The Emotional Guidance System says:  “If you are wrong…Terrible things will happen!  Being wrong is horrible, embarrassing, and you won’t be able to stand it!”

The Emotional Guidance System applies the same formula of fear-generating anxiety with:  “What if you are late?”  “What if you are early?”  “What if you don’t get the promotion?”  “What if you have cancer?”  “What if she gets mad?”   “What if my kid has problems?”

The little big-mouthed fear-monger sitting on your shoulder, shouting in your ear is specifically tuned to scare you about the possibilites most meaningful to you.  Here’s the challenge.  Each time today when your little “What if” Inner Torturer takes hold and starts going on and on exaggerating consequences….Think about Eagleman’s afterlife idea.  Play with this notion: 

If you knew you were going to have to meticulously repeat every second of every day you spent worrying….would you still CHOOSE to worry today?

Dateline:  Dallas Hilton Branch Office.  Giant flat-screen television.  Antique remote.  The Sleep Timer can be set by using manual controls.  Whew.  It’s not easy being a walking Emotional Guidance System patsy.

Which is more important?   The world of facts?  Or, the world you are responding to?”

How much of what you are talking so assuredly about….is just made up?   Our Thinking Guidance System would have us get the facts…before we act…but who has time for that?

So we respond to people AS IF they are the people, the characters, we’ve made up.  If we expect them to be kind, we’ll get that.  If we believe he or she is a CONTROL FREAK will we encounter a lot of pushy interfering behavior.

The “Knock Knock Incident”

The scene is the waiting area for those of us needing to have lab work done at a large medical facility.  About thirty of us wait, people coming in and out in this busy area.  There is a unisex bathroom off  to the side which is quite popular.  As the lab is near the hospital exit, some people notice the bathroom on leaving and opt to take advantage. The people come, they leave their blood, the people go. 

One fella decides on the bathroom option on his way out of the hospital and asks his wife to wait.  She has a seat and picks up a magazine.  The man closes the door.  Another man soon spots the bathroom on his way out and tries the door, which is locked, of course.  He shrugs and goes on with his day.  Then a women enters the waiting area on her way to other parts of the hospital.  She spies the bathroom, gives the door handle  an unsuccessful pull, and moves on.  A few minutes later a young woman in a T-shirt and shorts crosses the room and tries the door.

At the moment she twists the lever, the man inside happens to open the door.  He sneers at the lass and says, “What’s wrong with you?  Are you stupid?”
She stares blankly.  He says, “You must be stupid to have to try the door three times to figure out it was occupied!”  Girl looks stunned.  “Abused” man and wife walk out talking about how kids today have been ruined by cell phones and texting.