Too Nice for Your Own Good by Duke Robinson

Author:Duke Robinson [ROBINSON, DUKE]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: PSY023000
ISBN: 9780759522053
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2000-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

Mistake #5

REASONING WITH IRRATIONALITY

You refer to a friend in local politics as a compromiser. You mean that he works well with others. A mutual acquaintance overhears that part of your remarks and thinks you mean he has no backbone. The next day she tells your friend and he is upset. When you hear about it, you call him to explain. And as you begin, your mature, reasonable old friend blows his stack, calls you a liar, and slams down the phone.

A few years back, I drove to our busy village to do bank business and pick up some nails and brackets at the hardware store. Just as I spotted a convenient parking space, I noticed that the old Chevy ahead of me had stopped and might be going to back into it. So I kept my distance and waited. And waited. Cars soon piled up behind me and at least one driver blew his horn. I was getting impatient, too, when an elderly woman, with some difficulty, made her way slowly out of the front right door, and I concluded that she was being dropped off for shopping. So I slid headfirst into the parking space, counting myself lucky.

As I walked to the curb, the Chevy’s backup lights went on, and I could see that the little old man who was driving and who had enough trouble with parking was now flustered to realize he didn’t have a spot. I didn’t feel guilty for taking the space I thought he didn’t want, but I immediately felt sorry for him, and took a few steps back toward my car. At the same time, he continued to sit there, and the cars in back of him began beeping mercilessly and attracting attention. As he finally drove off, a young man suddenly put himself in my face and said loudly enough for everyone on the block to hear, “I saw what you just did to that old man and I think it was shitty!” I was stunned and tried to give him the whole picture, but he stalked off ranting to passersby—some of whom knew me—that he’d never seen anything more inconsiderate. I ran after him, still wanting to explain myself, but he shouted, “Shut up and don’t talk to me!” His attack left me feeling terrible, upset, and—shitty. And it took me a long time to get rid of that feeling.

Life does not always accord with reason. Dimensions of our experiences are utterly illogical. Some of these dimensions are positive—think of romance, passion, adventure, wonder, and serendipitous, crazy things. They give color to our lives. But some irrationalities are disturbing, especially people’s negative, emotional reactions to us that have no basis in reality. More specifically, I’m talking about criticism and personal attacks on us for things we didn’t do or, at least, didn’t mean to do, or were actually justified in doing.

Whenever people think we’ve violated or threatened them, one internal voice tells them immediately to flee conflict at any cost. And that impulse is strong.

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