A few days back my workday started badly. I have a co-worker who is responsible for getting a portion of the work accomplished in my work area. It seems that lately he is getting less and less done each day. All that he does not do has to be made up by me, in addition to all of my regular work. I see him strolling around talking to his friends. The work that he does accomplish is at a pace that would allow an arthritic, antiquarian tortoise to easily defeat him in any footrace.
On the day in question this co-worker’s time to leave came around and he stepped over to me, motioned to all of the undone work and said, “Sorry.” My response was a less than gracious grunt. My internal temperature then achieved full boil status as I watched him depart. Inside I was thinking, “That rotten S.O.B.! He is just a lazy ass who takes no pride in his work nor is he considerate of his co-workers.”
In my mind I was writing a complete story of this person, his approach to life, and what his motivation was for doing things. After a few megaton blasts of vitriol had ripped through my mind about this guy, I began to step back and slowly start putting some things I have recently been learning into practice.
I realized that I was writing a detailed narrative about this person based upon … nothing but my own anger at a perceived injustice toward me. In actuality, I know almost nothing about this person, not even their name. I do not know what frustrations they may have in their life outside of work. I do not know what difficulties and injustices they may be having to put up with at work (my work place is not a model of management caring for the rank and file workers). I do not know what kind of possibly negative influences in their life may have shaped them. I do not know … well the list could go on and on. But all that I did not know about this person had not been stopping me from writing a full, negative biography about them as if I knew every detail of their life story.
All of this served to cause me to to be a seething mass of negative energy at work that morning. It finally came to me. What if I could step back and become an observer of all that was going on with me in this moment? What if I could step outside the situation and all of my negative reaction to see if there was a more positive way to deal with all of this?
When I did this, I began to see that I was doing the very thing I described about making assumptions concerning this person without truly knowing them. This simple act went a long way to defusing much of the power from the anger I was feeling. It was bringing it down to a much, much lower level. It helped move me to a much calmer place to work through my feelings. It helped me to bring an element of compassion to my view of my co-worker that I had been unable to do just a short while before.
There was another perspective it allowed me to see. It helped me see how I was choosing a very unskillful approach to the situation even if my assessment of my co-worker being a rotten S.O.B. was, in fact, 100 percent accurate. Was my allowing my anger to turn me into a boiling bucket of bile bringing anything positive to the situation? Was it making me feel better? Was it making me a better person for my co-workers whom I care about? Was it making me a positive asset to my workplace? Was my doing this doing anything to actually relieve the unhealthy turmoil churning in my own being?
Of course, the answer is a resounding, “NO!!!” to all these questions.
The next time you find yourself in a similar situation I encourage you to pause, take a few deep breaths, and focus on reframing your approach. You may think that this is something you could never do. But, I know you can. At first it may take you a long time to try. In the beginning it may have a very weak effect. Keep at it. You will find that you will feel better about yourself the more you are able to put this into practice. You will find that peace will begin to fill your life more. You will become a greater source of peace for those around you.
Think about it.
You are loved. Peace.
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