Lately I noticed I started to defend morons.
Morons
In last few weeks whenever my partner would complain about somebody being a jerk or a moron in some situation, I wouldn’t say as normally “well yeah, s/he was a jerk, fuck it, let’s go have pizza”. Instead, I noticed that I started taking the defending position:
- well… maybe he thought that…
- oh she probably….
- hmm, maybe he wanted… but it didn’t go as he planned
and such. As if somebody hired me to be those people’s advocate.
Of course, like every normal person I ask myself what the reasons the person did so-and-so are all the time, but this was lately different – I was actively going into debate and passionate defense of a person whose reasonings I know nothing of.
Pain point
This week I’m celebrating(?) 5th consequential week of constant pain. I’m not dying of course or anything serious but I’m not quite ok, and I do take medication and visit doctors to solve this situation. But being reasonable and trying to solve this doesn’t cancel out the fact that 90% of my awake time i’m in mild to severe pain and am able not to scream or cry only thanks to the mercy of painkillers and life-long habit of hiding my feelings. When this becomes not enough not to cry… well, this is where water-proof eyeliners come very handy.
As an outcome I’m tired, less productive and generally more annoyed human being.
However I’m not the only one who suffers:
- With coworkers I can just stay away when I’m feeling worst and enforce my resting-bitch-face-with-social-anxiety personality… ok
- With friends I can either reschedule or take extra meds and be an adequate conversationalist for 2 hours or so… ok
- With a partner – there’s nowhere to hide.
While I’m feeling like crap, my partner has to deal.. with this crap. And the treatment I get is actually an understanding.
Instead of – “She’s lately so low on energy and gets more easily annoyed. Fuck this bitch”
I get – “Well, she uses most of her energy to keep her shit together and not wine and cry all the time, instead she tries to handle it and uses the rest of the energy to be the person i know and like. It’s temporary and I’m there to support her.”
Spoiled
Since in the situation above I see how a person in a ‘bad place’ should be treated I become in a way spoiled with compassion. Instead of applying some (non-existing average) level of compassion I’m used to, I started to project over-caring I got onto others around me.
Which probably isn’t a bad thing.
How my brain started to take that somebody’s being a jerk is “well, maybe s/he is dealing with something bad and fucked up so behaving like a jerk is already a step up from being a ultra-jerk that s/he could have been in such situation”. I project my own struggle to say hi and smile when I just want to vomit and hide from a starting migraine under a blanket at home.
Hence, when I see or hear somebody’s being not nice instead of having initial reaction of aversion to the person, my reflex became compassion:
- why s/he’s saying this?
- what could s/he be going through?
- maybe the place the person is in is sooo bad, that I should give him/her a slack, etc.
Quote
Sometime ago I stumbled on a quote
“Don’t judge people. You don’t know what demons they’re fighting inside”
As much as I’m a NON-believer of “everything happens for a reason”, as much I DO believe in finding an opportunity to learn from any situation. However I like to perceive myself a smart person, many things I understand but fail (magnificently fail) to apply. And in a way, while trying to handle a not-nice situation and not to be a jerk to others, I got closer to understanding more the level of compassion I should show to people around me. Because the last moron I want to defend is me.