A person takes the last two packs of the toilet paper you prefer off the shelf and leaves you to have to get something else. The cashier spends a lot of time chatting with the customer ahead of you, wasting your time and making you late for your appointment. Someone makes a joke at your expense about something they should have known you were sensitive about. Your co-worker spends most of their shift on their cell phone while still coming in late and taking far too long of a lunch break while you overcompensate for their laziness.
The common theme here is an assumption that people know what they should have done, and have chosen to do otherwise intentionally. We assume, because we might be self-aware and considerate of others, that we project that expectation onto everyone else. If that’s the case, then they’re being selfish, or maybe even spiteful. Then, we might do what anyone does when they feel they’ve been done an injustice: get angry, seek revenge, maybe do the same thing to someone else, and then feel vindicated, as if we are personally keeping the universe in balance by our actions.
While I understand the desire to do these things, I should probably make it perfectly clear that we make a mistake almost immediately when events like this happen in our lives.
We assume people are thinking like us, and therefore, are being purposefully difficult, or in its most extreme interpretation, being a total asshole for no reason other than enjoyment.
I’ll be honest, it does sometimes seem that way. And if we were children, the choice to respond to misdeeds with reciprocal actions seems appropriate. Unfortunately, we are not children. In addition to this, most people aren’t even self aware enough to realize when they’ve done something wrong.
They make the mistake of assuming that what is convenient for them and gets the results they want is the same thing as the right thing to do in any given situation.
If that makes you angry, I understand. Consider, however, if a child, uneducated in the ways of the world, were to wrong you in some way. Do you become blind with rage? Do you seek revenge on a child, whose only mistake is not understanding the world? Or do you see a place where you can find sympathy? Getting angry is natural, but after the initial anger response, your behaviour is a choice, and should be grounded in something stronger than a “they started it” mentality. Indulging your anger is not the same as seeking justice. Let them act like a child. You can be an adult about it. You can let the bad behaviour stop with them. You owe it to yourself to be better than that. You deserve that peace.
❤❤❤