Wednesday, May 21, 2014

What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?

I know I have used this song title before, but there it is again.  But what I really want to know is: What’s so HARD about peace, love, and understanding? And what’s so hard about being nice?

I understand completely that sometimes if we are having an inordinate amount of frustration or struggle, or if we are sleep-deprived or not feeling well, we can be irritable. Patience wears thin for all of us sometimes. For example, as I type this, I am listening to terrible hold music on speakerphone and seeing from the corner of my eye Intuit tech support people work away on my other computer.

Today I have already spent four hours on the phone with them. Last Thursday I spent five and a half hours on one phone call with them. Friday was another three and half hours. My patience has been threadbare a few times over all those hours. On top of that, I woke up Saturday morning with a severe belly ailment that involved a trip to a walk-in clinic and all the fun that entails. By Saturday afternoon, my patience level was at zero.

Although I was able to stay home most of the weekend so as to avoid interacting with unsuspecting people, I did have to venture out some. At times like this I am acutely aware of how pettily mean and inconsiderate people can be. I am also aware of how I could be just as petty and mean if I failed to make a bit of effort to restrain my not-so-nice urges. So why is it that some people not only seem not to have that restraint, but a few seem to go out of their way to be rude, inconsiderate, or mean?

I believe I am about as average as a person can be. I look around me and I assume that everyone else is busy trying to get their business done just the same as I am. I think, in most cases, anyone who gets in my way probably did it by accident, or ignorance, or confusion. Sometimes I see signs of narcissism in the way people conduct themselves, particularly behind the wheel of a car. Sometimes I see signs of people acting with a constant sorting and ranking process going on in the back of their mind—ranking people according to their worthiness in the world be it their economic resources, their educational attainment, the color of their skin, their gender, and so on—and their treatment of people is related to how they rank.  Occasionally, I see someone who I am sure is being mean or disruptive just because they enjoy it. Perhaps it gives them a sense of power. This is what I think about computer hackers.

Of the people I have spoken with at Intuit, almost all of them have been pleasant. I have been very frustrated at times, but that generally stems from someone who has been given a job to do but has not been given the resources or power to do it correctly. That is the fault of their company, not them, personally. Why should I be rude or mean to them? Oh, I have had to bite my tongue nearly in two to keep from being, as my Granny called it, ugly. The only reason I have spent as much time with the Intuit folks as I have is that my QuickBooks has developed a glitch that has everyone stumped. While it has been frustrating to spend so much time on the phone, whose fault is it? No one’s!!!


This brings me to one explanation as to why people can be so rude, and leads me back to another previously-used song lyric, “It’s nobody’s fault, but we need somebody to burn.” Get out there and spread some Peace, Love, and Understanding—and BE NICE!!! 

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