Do you want to be part of the problem, or part of the solution?

I have felt an increased need to ask myself this question as a way to guide myself through difficult moments. Perhaps it isn’t the need that has increased, but the number of difficult moments. Nevertheless, I experienced one such moment last night.

In picking up an order from a store yesterday evening, I had the audacity to warn a young boy not to throw his football around all over the store after it almost hit me in the head. I was then verbally harassed and nearly assaulted by this child’s parent who seemed to think my stern tone was the problem, and that the reason for my tone was irrelevant. Surely it did not matter if the child actually hit me, or if he caused any damage in the store; he was four years old and she seemed to think he was therefore entitled to do whatever he wanted, consequences be damned. I’m sorry, lady, what tone would you have used if you suddenly had a football thrown at your head in the middle of the store? I feel like not needing to worry about my physical safety inside an arts and crafts store should be a reasonable expectation at 7:00PM on a Monday evening, but hey, I guess that’s a crazy idea.

Having been bred on loud confrontation, you can trust I gave as good as I got, but I reached a point where I needed to remove myself from the situation. At first that frustrated me because that led her to believe she “won” the argument. In truth, though, not only did she not “win” here, the real loser is this boy who seemed quite sweet and has a significant level of bad example that he’ll end up learning from. There are some people who won’t change or adjust their behavior because they don’t see that they’re part of the problem. Even my attempts to acknowledge that yes, my tone was angry and I apologize for that, were irrelevant because what she wanted was not for me to apologize but for her to win; I know this because she wouldn’t let it go and continued to be verbally abusive and physically threatening to me. It was at that point that I left. People like that…you have to let them think they won, in order to save yourself.

What eyewitnesses told me at the store, in addition to the fact that I did nothing wrong, was that I got so upset about it because I care so much, and that’s true. This woman can live her life in self-righteous anger all she wants; it’s an exhausting and painful way to live. I no longer have the stamina for it. It’s not sustainable. When my own anger burned away, I just felt sad, and it took much longer for me to work through that (well, and calming down my fight-or-flight response).

I think I’m still rather sad about it. I just…I just wish people would be kinder to each other.

Eventually, I managed to have a conversation with myself, inside my head, about what I wanted from this experience. Do I care what she thinks of me? I asked myself. “No,” was the immediate, self-assured reply. “I don’t care what she thinks. I care what I think.” Okay, I said encouragingly, and what do you think?

I think that if I am going to let one ridiculous entitled schmuck crush my soul, I’m not the strong and resilient person I thought I was. And I think that one person’s unkindness shouldn’t make me less kind.

And I think…I’d much rather be part of the solution.