Tag Archives: Bigger Person

I sent a friend request to Andre

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, about positivity, about being positive and staying positive and doing and thinking positive things. It’s been a journey, a real journey, deep within, I’m accessing like universal things here, about humanity, about positivity, words like oneness and the universe and consciousness. It’s a real spiritual awakening here, and so it came to me, not really like an epiphany, because it wasn’t just one thing, but a lot of epiphanies, not little epiphanies, but big epiphanies, one after the other, and so everything’s constantly changing.

And so I thought about Andre. We kept butting heads, reaching out, pulling back, ultimately it got to the point where we lost all contact with each other. Our friendship was all but destroyed, almost like it never existed in the first place. But it did exist, I think, and so as I continued deeper and deeper on my spiritual cosmic journey of universal self-discovery, I felt like there was something holding me back, preventing me from achieving that real oneness. It was Andre.

I resolved to make things right between us, to absolve the stain from our shared history, make true amends. I sent him a friend request on Facebook. I was the one who severed that digital tie months ago. We had this botched fishing trip and when I got home I removed him from my friend list that night.

But a day passed. And then another day. And Andre didn’t accept. I sent him a text message, “Yo, u get my friend request?” with no response. I tried clicking on his profile, but only very limited information was available to non-friends. So I asked our shared friends, a group that, to be honest, I’d kind of lost touch with over the past year. I really just stopped taking most phone calls from those guys. I didn’t want it to be weird, if the both of us showed up, Andre and me, ruining everybody else’s good time.

My friend Tony filled me in, told me that Andre joined the Air Force, that he left like six months ago. They had a big party, this huge send off. Was I even invited? I could feel my grip on the positivity starting to slip. “But hey,” Tony told me, “He’s coming back earlier than expected. He got wounded, and so he had to be discharged. We’re all having a huge welcome home party this Thursday. You should come. Nobody’s seen you in forever.”

I felt like a huge dick, like I’d alienated all of my friends, like I’ve been spending so much time on my positivity training that I had totally lost touch with everybody. And yeah, I wasn’t on speaking terms with Andre, but I would have come to his send off. Come on, they should have reached out; I would have been there for him.

I showed up on Thursday and everybody was huddled around this one stool by the bar. I only saw the top of Andre’s head because he was sitting down. All of these crazy thoughts went through my head, like what were the extent of Andre’s injuries? Did he have all of his limbs? Would he still recognize me?

But then he got up off the stool, like stood up by himself, and he turned around to order another drink. That’s when we made eye contact. I went up to him, I told him, “Hey man, sorry it’s been so long. I sent you a Facebook friend request.”

“Thanks man,” he said. That was it, which was good, because normally he’d say something like, “That’s big of you,” and whatever, we’ve always, or I’ve always had this who’s-the-bigger-person complex, but it’s all silly, it doesn’t matter. This guy’s a vet now, he’s totally the bigger person.

And so I threw in a, “Thanks for your service Andre,” and he kind of shrugged, “You know, just trying to do my part,” and he just sort of looked down at his shoes. “So what happened?” I asked, “Why’d you get sent home?” and he looked up and said, “My injury.” I was like, “Yeah, is it bad? Did you get wounded in a conflict?”

He shook his head, “No, I was just getting all of this back pain during training, so before we got shipped out, they sent me home.” Just then our friend Hank, he shouted out to the whole bar, “Hey let’s welcome back our good friend Andre, a real American hero!” and everybody started cheering. Andre did a casual salute to the bar and everyone went nuts.

“So,” I tried to bring him back to our conversation, “you never even really went?” “No, I went, I just, you know, I’m injured.”

“Three cheers for Andre!”

“Hip hip, hooray!”

And I felt myself drifting slightly from my spiritual center, and I was about to say something, I had that look on my face, like, are you serious? And you’re going to stand here and take this hero’s welcome? I didn’t say it, but I didn’t have to, because, like I said, I was making that kind of weird skeptical face.

“Well what about the friend request? Are you going to accept it?” and he said, “OK, sure,” and he took out his phone right there and accepted it, but when he exited the Facebook app, right before he put his phone away, I looked toward his text message notifications, and I wanted to check his messages, to see if he ignored that text message I sent him, so I said, “Do you mind if I borrow your phone for a second?” and he just said, “What? Uh, hold on, I have to go to the bathroom,” and when he came back he didn’t mention the phone thing, didn’t mention the text message.

The rest of the night went by without incident. When I got home, I went onto Facebook and Andre was back on my news feed. He wrote, “Glad to be home! Thanks everybody for coming out! War is hell!” and like three of our friends responded, stuff like, “USA! USA! USA!”

It’s a brand new me

I try to be a nice guy. In theory, in my head, in my image of myself, whenever I think about me, about my self-image, about Rob G. the guy, the human being, about what type of guy I am, I think, who am I? Who do I want to be? I think about being a nice person, understanding, compassionate, empathetic. I like to give out advice to people. Whenever somebody I know is angry or upset or not smiling, I like to dole out platitudes, like, “Hey man, don’t sweat the small stuff,” or, “You know, if you just force yourself to smile, eventually your brain will start firing off dopamine, so just fake it until you feel it.” And I’ll think that I really mean this stuff, and maybe at that moment I’ll actually believe it myself. Maybe I can really convince myself, fool myself for a whole day, a week even. I’ll concentrate on taking really deep breaths and catching myself before I get locked in a bad mood. And then maybe I’ll actually start to believe this for longer than a week, like maybe it’ll be a month, and I’m walking around smiling, great posture, I’m just this shining, living example of positivity. And I’m running all the time. And I’m eating great. And I haven’t fought with anybody in so long. I’m just past all of the negativity. This is a brand new me. And I’m thinking all about me, about how it’s so much better to just feel great all of the time, to just stay positive, above all of the petty, biological reactions to normal, pedestrian, everyday problems, above everyone else and their funny looks and their insults. I’ve reached a new level of spiritual maturity. I get things now. I’ve been feeling so great for so long now. Words keep popping in my mind like transcendence and evolution and growth. You know what? I’m in such a great mood. Let’s go to McDonald’s.

And then I walk over to McDonald’s, and I’m smiling. And I’m just standing tall, beaming. Radiating. I’m just radiating my chest out in front of me, taking these giant long breaths. Me and this other guy are walking towards the door at the same time, and I want to be the bigger person and hold the door open for him, to set a good, positive example, but I don’t want to run, because I don’t want him to think that I’m racing him towards the door so I can get on line first. This guy’s probably not as emotionally secure as I am, he might take my running to be just that, running, a race, while I’m actually just trying to be polite, to him, so I don’t run, I slow my pace actually, letting him go first. I’m in no rush. I’m just enjoying this lovely, beautiful day. Truly a blessing, each day. Each day, a gift. He gets to the door first and he holds it open for me. Unbelievable. I can only assume that my standing up so straight, my calm, relaxed, positive demeanor has somehow inspired this fellow human being to do me a good turn. I’m really appreciative. I’m also a little taken aback. I was counting on me being the one getting thanked, but I thank him nonetheless. I’m humble, if anything. It takes a big man to accept a gift, open-minded, and look, there’s a second door. And I went in first, so now I can return the favor. And now look who’s going to be on line first. That guy is. You’re welcome sir, think nothing of it.

But this is just taking so long. I’m not in a rush or anything, but I mean, it’s McDonald’s. How long should this really be taking? And this line setup. I never understood the McDonald’s line setup. Like there are four cashiers, and each one has their own line. So if you get in the wrong line, like the slowest line, then people at faster lines who may have entered the restaurant after you might actually be getting served first. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have one line, and as a cashier becomes available, the next person waiting in the single line would then move up to get helped? Like at Chipotle. But Chipotle is really more of an assembly line, whereas McDonald’s is all behind-the-scenes type …

And there it is. I might have fooled myself for a day, a week, but here I am on line at McDonald’s just going crazy here. Take a deep breath. It’s OK. I’m back. That was just a hiccup. That wasn’t the new me. That was the old me, but just for a second, so it doesn’t count. But that guy over there definitely came in after me and now he’s ordering. I knew it. I’m totally on the slow line. I always wind up on the slow line. It’s not the line that bothers me, it’s the inconsistency. Who is setting line policy here? Would it kill somebody behind the counter to just pay attention to who is coming in and out? And I just hate it when people cut the line and go right to the counter and start demanding, “Honey mustard! Ketchup! Free refills!” and they think that just because they already paid and are eating that they are somehow entitled to just skip right back to the front. And the cashier always stops whatever he or she is doing to get them condiments and drinks and …

This isn’t working. It’s really not. I know I’m the bigger person, I just know it, but it’s so hard to be mature and composed here when I clearly ordered a Sausage McMuffin meal and this guy just gives me the sandwich and no hashbrown. And I try, politely, calmly, to tell him that I ordered a meal, but he says I didn’t. OK, whatever, I did, but that’s beside the point, just get me a hashbrown because even if you didn’t hear me, I’m telling you right now that I wanted one so just go take my money, please, I feel like I’ve been waiting on line here for a week. And then I get home and there’s no egg, just a sausage patty, and I’m just so pissed, because I rarely get McDonald’s breakfast, I’m never up in time, and I finally find myself all calm and centered and waking up like a normal person and I just want a normal McDonald’s breakfast and I can’t even get a Sausage McMuffin with egg and. And this isn’t working out. I was a bigger person for like a second, but now I’m feeling smaller than ever. Tall, but small. And starving.

Being the bigger person

I’m really good at winning any argument or fight. Usually I have the facts on my side, but sometimes the facts aren’t enough. Sometimes I’ll find myself arguing with someone who simply refuses to consider my point of view. Sometimes emotion gets in the way and clouds better judgment. Sometimes the fight will be purely theoretical, philosophical, a contest of ideas. Sometimes it could be grounded in the real world. Sometimes it’s not even a question of facts or points of view. Sometimes I might just step on someone’s feet and this person won’t take my apology and instead wants to yell at me for a while. Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes. But there’s a different strategy to win every different type of confrontation.

Let’s say I’m butting heads with someone at work. It happens every now and then. There are always a lot of people doing many different things at the same time, so it’s pretty easy to unintentionally get in somebody else’s way. When it’s really busy, both people involved might not have time to thoroughly step back and assess the situation.

Say I bump into somebody else, or, somebody else bumps into me, or, more likely, there is a definite bumping into by two coworkers, but we are both so busy that it was probably both equally our fault. I always like to let the other person react first, so I can best judge how to respond appropriately. I might get a curt, “Watch it,” a cold, under-the-breath muttering. To me, this is a little selfish of the other person. They clearly want to engage, to express their frustrations, but they only want to do it a little bit, halfway, just enough to make a claim that they were wronged, but not loud enough to really deserve a rebuttal. Maybe it was so quiet I barely heard it at all.

But I definitely heard it. So I’ll go back with a louder, “Watch what? I was here first!” It doesn’t matter who was where first. What is important is that I’m staking a claim to my own space. And by saying it in a voice loud enough for everyone else to hear, I’m making a public challenge that anything was ever my fault in the first place. This is going to continue in either one of two directions. Most likely, the other person is going to let it go, having not expected me to respond so forcefully. But maybe this person is of an equally strong will. And he’ll step right up and say something like, “Oh yeah?”

You might think my next move would be to get even louder, to say “Yeah!” really loud, for everyone to hear. But that’s never the way to go. At that point, other people might start noticing, and somebody might try to get involved and play peacemaker or something, and that wouldn’t resolve anything, it would just leave the wound open, ripe for infection. No, this has to get settled. But I’ve already escalated as far as I want to escalate. What if this guy gets crazy and pushes me or something? I’ve already drawn him out as far as I want to verbally. I don’t want him trying to lure me out physically.

So it’s at this point, now that things are loud enough that everyone can hear, now that everyone knows that we’re having a disagreement that’s getting a little more heated than usual, I’ll say in the same loud voice, but really steady and calm this time, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m going to be the bigger person and apologize. It was my fault.” And then I’ll extend my hand in peace and smile a really big smile.

Now everyone knows that I’m the bigger person. I’m willing to not let the small stuff get in the way of a productive workplace environment. I respect my coworkers so much that I don’t want to involve them all of this unnecessary drama. And everyone’s looking at the both of us, this other guy clearly still upset, reluctant even to take my hand, and me standing next to him, tranquil, ready to let bygones be bygones. When everyone is talking about it later, they’ll say, “Well, whatever started this fight in the first place, it clearly couldn’t have been Rob’s fault. He’s too mature to get drawn into such petty squabbles. Just look at the way that he expertly diffused the situation!”

And when the other person takes my hand, I’ll give him the strongest handshake ever. It’ll be one of those handshakes that’s definitely way too firm, maybe it even hurts a little, maybe his knuckles start to buckle under the sheer stress, but everyone respects those handshakes, so what is he going to say, I’m shaking his hand too hard? He’ll look like a total wimp. And I’ll just look him right in the eye while I hold my grip just a second too long, barely noticeable to anybody else, but he’ll get the message.

Or maybe he won’t take my hand. Maybe he’ll look at me and say something like, “Whatever man!” and storm away. And I’ll just be left there hanging. But that’s fine, because I’ll look like an even bigger person. I’ll just stand there and shrug it off, the fact that he slighted my apology not even registering on my face. And I’ll look at my coworkers and be like, “Man, what’s his problem?” And we’ll all kind of laugh to ourselves lightly, but not too hard, because that guy is walking this way again, and I want him to think that we were all laughing about him, but I don’t want him to have any proof. I just want him to see the very end of our smiles, so that if he confronts anybody, we can all say that he’s acting crazy and we don’t know what he’s talking about.