This week I want to present three situations I recently experienced as a way to ask how you would respond:
- Today I was at a wedding reception at Michelangelo’s, and I had to run back to my car because I forgot my tooth brush… you know, a typical thing people forget to bring in with them to a fancy dinner. In the parking lot I looked down and painted on the asphalt were the letters “MO7S”. I thought to myself, “What’s a MO7S?” It was at a Serbian wedding, so at first I thought this must be a Serbian word, but that’s stupid because the place is called Michelangelo’s, which means it’s an Italian word. A few seconds later, after walking past the word, I looked back and it said. “SLOW”. Ooohhhh I was reading it upside down… fitting that the word is ‘slow’ because clearly I’m MO7S . When you do something silly like this do you laugh or call yourself stupid?
- Last Saturday I had my bachelor party; I think I might be the first guy to have a bachelor party and to have been to Las Vegas for a week with a buddy (2 separate events), and still be able to say he hasn’t been to the strip club or had alcohol. Part of the bachelor party included seeing a show at Second City, which is one of my favourite places to go. After the show the group of us were hanging outside and one of the female performers walked past us down the sidewalk. I quickly decided to jog up to her say, “Excuse me…” and as she looked at me with terror in her eyes I continued, “You were awesome,” and then I turned and went back to my friends as she walked a little faster down the street away from me. It was a strange reaction to a cheerful voice saying ‘excuse me’. Most people who say ‘excuse me’ are usually asking for directions or a maybe a lighter. Most people don’t say ‘excuse me’ and then proceed to attack them. Maybe if it was a dark alley, but it was a well lit street bustling with people. Regardless, as I returned to my group of friends they all made fun of me for scaring the girl. How do you respond? Do you stop trying to give compliments to people for fear of scaring them? Do you replay the scene in your head criticizing yourself for little details like, “I should’ve spoke in an English accent; that would’ve made me seem friendlier.” Or do you let it go assuming she’s had bad experience in the past and that she’s going home a little happier from the compliment even though in the moment she didn’t show it?
- Shortly after this incident I was in a group of four people and a homeless person came up to us with a cup… I’m assuming he was homeless; he may have been a lawyer trying to make some extra cash after hours. He asked for change and out of the group of four I responded out loud: “I’m sorry I don’t have any cash.” He rudely replied, “I don’t want cash; I want change like a quarter.” First off, it’s a good thing he defined what he meant by change, “Ooohhh a quarter; I thought you meant change like in a button or token for a Laundromat.” Second, why are you being rude to me? I actually acknowledged you unlike the other three people in my group. But, I didn’t want to be rude in return so I simply said, “Sorry I don’t have any change.” He then mumbled a comment about me having stupid, spikey hair, and he turned and left. Um, why are you making fun of me? Maybe if I had a mullet you could make fun of me, but even then if I had a mullet I clearly wasn’t worried about fashion and insulting that area would mean nothing to me. How do you respond to someone like this? Do you retaliate? Do you beat yourself up for having done something wrong to upset this unstable person? Or do you brush it off because you know he’s having a rough go of things and clearly not in a good state of mind?
This week may you realize the importance of laughing at our mistakes and brushing things like this off. If more people did this, there’d be a whole lot less drama and anger in our world. Most fights are simply misunderstandings and can be resolved with some clarification and kind words to others and to ourselves.
Rev Chad David; www.ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people