The Words That Burn
Choosing Empathy and Kindness Over Ego
“Asshole!” she muttered under her breath.
I must have been distracted. The years of illness had taken its toll on me by this point, and in truth I barely noticed her sitting there. I just assumed she was waiting for her prescription to be filled…same as everyone else.
I never actually heard her say the word. My wife mentioned it as we were walking away. I went from subdued weariness to raging indignation in a hot second.
It hadn’t even occurred to me at this point that I had done anything wrong, even if accidentally. With all this emotion swirling about, my mind wasn’t looking for rational answers. Had I been more sober-minded…more aware, I might have realized my mistake, gone back and said something like, “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t realize you were waiting in line. I should have paid more attention. I should have asked.”
Only that’s not what I did.
As I was standing there by the dubiously named Powerade trying to decide what, if anything, I should do, the woman was approaching. It was obvious she was as uncomfortable with the situation as I was. Yet I felt compelled to say something. My pride was injured and the insult was still burning like a open wound. I stepped towards her and said, “You know, I really don’t appreciate being called an asshole!”
“Well then you shouldn’t act like one.” She shot back, before scurrying away.
She got the better part of it by far. I’ve never been quick with words, hence any reply I might have made dribbled out of my mind several moments too late, never even reaching my lips. I stood there in a stupefied silence with twice the insult, twice the anger and twice the regret hanging over me.
I’ve thought about that exchange often over the last several years. The words we say and the emotions that motivate them have a habit of sticking with us long beyond their first thought and utterance. It doesn’t matter if it was all a misunderstanding or if there were extenuating factors.
The memory remains. The words burn.
You might be thinking, “Wait, she called you the asshole. Why would you feel bad about pointing that out?” It’s not that simple. See, I don’t want to carry around anger inside of me, nor do I want to become so calloused to the feelings of others that I just become like stone.
Some part of me did neglect to see her. Some part of me didn’t even think to ask the question. Sure, we all make mistakes. I’m not expecting perfection, but how we act and how we respond to others, especially when they don’t treat us as we feel we deserve to be treated, is a pretty good indicator of the overall path we’re on. It tells us the kind of people we might very well be…even if we don’t want to acknowledge it.
The fact is, there are more than enough angry and hard people in the world and I don’t see that it’s done them or the rest of us any favors. And behind every one of those angry and hard people is an image of life that requires them to be that way, whether in the moment, or over the course of a whole lifetime.
Or at least that’s how they see it.
Yet the world is as angry and as hard as we make it. To be sure, there will always be suffering and hatred. There will likewise always be a thousand other reasons to allow a shadow to descend over our view of the world and the people in it. But just as we can choose the dark, the depraved, the cynical and the ego-driven hell within, so too can we choose to see beyond our own woundedness and beyond the expressions of it which others project towards us.
For the woman who called me an asshole, there’s a million different stories behind that and I can only guess at which one is true. For example, she was sitting in that pharmacy rather than standing. What does that tell me? Maybe she was fatigued and possibly in pain. Maybe the pharmacists had been busy and kept her waiting.
And why was her anger so close to the surface? Maybe she had been neglected, discarded….ignored, one too many times.
I have no way of knowing, which is really the point.
It’s so easy to flatten other people down in our minds. They become little more than a caricature. We allow for infinite complexity within ourselves…infinite justification, but reduce others to singular emotions and perceptions.
So often this is the case because we’re reacting to what happens to us rather than responding in a way that reflects the sort of people we want to be. Reactions are elemental. When your anger meets my sense of pride, I have to react.
Only, I don’t…and neither do you.
It’s possible to pursue a way of being where the words and actions meant to harm you pass through you instead. This is what allows you to respond according to who you are and not what was done to you. It’s what makes it possible to break the default cycles of human callousness, anger and aggression.
Unexpected kindness and empathy is infinitely more potent than a stinging reply, a clenched fist or a passive aggressive scorched-earth campaign.
It’s not easy doing this. It is however easier than the death by a thousand cuts that we inflict upon ourselves every time we indulge our own pride over risking a little kindness. We have to be intentional about training up our empathy. You accomplish this every time you choose to see another person’s humanity and not just the gaping hole left in your own wounded pride.
For my part, I hope that next time…and there will undoubtedly be a next time…I won’t be so quick to react. In fact I hope I don’t react at all, but rather respond as the kind of person I truly wish to be. I hope I’ll recognize that there’s enough cruelty and pain and hardness in the world.
In this way, what might have been intended as a bit of ugliness might instead be turned to unexpected goodness.
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