People who are overly nice can make me angry. I don’t mean the frustratingly nice ones who end up in situations like when two drivers are at an intersection and the one waves the other on, but then the other waves them on. This causes the original one to wave the other on again, but the other waves them on again and this keeps going – that’s frustrating, but it doesn’t make me angry. In an actual situation, I was recently at a street corner with my wife and kids trying to cross the road and a driver waved us to go, so I went with the kids and my wife started waving for the car to go… that could’ve ended pretty badly. I would’ve wondered if this was a wanting the life insurance moment, but she wouldn’t have risked the kids even though they bounce pretty well. After we were all across, I calmly told my wife if someone offers you to go first, accept it, and wave to say thanks otherwise you’re actually being mean because you’re rejecting their kindness (and putting me at risk of seeing if I bounce like the kids). By not accepting the offer it’s like she was saying, “You should go because I’m kinder than you.” We need to encourage kindness by accepting it where we can with appreciation. This kind of situation, however, doesn’t make me angry; it’s frustrating (and makes me grateful the driver was paying attention).
When I say overly nice people make me angry what I mean is people who enable bad behavior. Sometimes, the nicest thing we can do is let someone fall on their face. Sometimes, when someone falls on their face, the nicest thing we can do for them is stand back and let them figure out how to get back up. It’s like how I’ve mentioned in previous lessons that quite often what’s best for people in the long run isn’t what makes us happy in the moment. This is the reason there’s the saying, “The road to success is paved in failure.” Failure isn’t a bad thing. It’s often our most memorable teacher… and can give us some pretty hilarious moments like in videos of people hurting themselves.
I recently saw someone changed this saying to: “The road to success is always under construction.” Does that mean you never feel successful? That sounds depressing. Success simply means achieving a goal no matter how big or small. If you’re not finding “success,” change your goals to something smaller. For instance, instead of making your goal to fix a leaky tap, break the overall goal down into smaller, easier to achieve goals in order to have things to check off your to-do list and encourage you to keep going. Fixing a tap could be broken down to do research to see what’s needed to fix it, go to the store, put the part on, cleanup, and show off your fixing skills. Then, when something goes wrong (because fixing something typically never goes as you planned), add more steps as needed like go back to the store for a new part, go back to the store again to get another new part, and go back to the store to return the last two pieces because the first one actually worked, but you didn’t realize it. At least checking something off your to-do list feels like you’re getting somewhere.
So what do I mean by people who enable bad behavior? I mean well-intentioned people who don’t let others face the repercussions for their bad choices. Our culture confuses me because, in general, it seems to punish good, hardworking people by making them pull up the slack for those who choose to be lazy and/or whiney. Do we help the poor? Yes… but it should be to a point. Do we help animals? Yes… but it should be to a point. Do we help people who struggle mentally? Absolutely… but it should be to a point. A good life means we want to help others (to a point) and let others help us (to a point) – it’s balanced. You need both sides in order to build self worth. You have a sense of value because you have value. You need to be contributing to have value and not just existing. We ultimately need to help people help themselves and others even if all they can offer is gratitude. Unfortunately, it’s often easier to just do something for someone instead of getting them to participate. I get it. It takes a fraction of the time for me to clean up after my kids compared to getting them involved, but then I’m missing out on the connection of working together and helping them become more independent. I once had an 18 year old in my youth who did well enough in school, but there was some learning disability. He was originally in one of my teaching practicum classes and he got an A on the assignments I gave, so he was definitely intelligent enough, but at a youth retreat when it was time to cleanup, I asked him to sweep the kitchen and he replied, “I don’t know how.” He added his mom never made him clean up. Are you kidding me? Is this a lie he’s telling to get out of a simple task or is that true? Either way, the fact that he thought this would get him out of doing a chore was not happening: “Here’s the broom. Figure it out.”
What does it mean to take responsibility? In the first week of school, I was dropping my daughter off in the kindergarten area at the front of her school that’s on a side street surrounded by houses. We were on the school side and I noticed a family of four standing together on the other side of the street. I don’t know what they were doing, but the boy who was likely in kindergarten suddenly darted across the street without looking. Maybe he was anxious to get to school or maybe he heard chickens like to cross roads and he wanted to see what it’s all about, but that was a terrible choice. Without looking, the mom chased him across the street (another terrible choice) while the dad stood there confused. To make it worse, a truck was driving up the street – it was bad timing… but it wasn’t that bad of timing. The truck was able to stop without even having to slam on the brakes. The truck driver was very casual about it and stopped with decent space between him and the mom who chased the boy and then stopped to talk to him while she was still on the road – genius. Funny enough, if the driver didn’t stop, the boy would’ve been fine; it would’ve been the mom who’d have been schmucked… well, her and her other smaller child who followed her onto the street. What was the dad doing? His impression of a statue – brilliant. His reaction time was like a sloth… with handcuffs… in a coma… trapped in a box (aka the world’s longest magic trick). It was a gong show moment for that family, but they were lucky the truck driver wasn’t stoned like the dad probably was.
When the panicked mom got to her son on the other side of the street I was expecting a classic show of a scared yet embarrassed parent scolding since her child almost caused the need for a cleanup crew to be called. Instead, she calmly said, “You’re not supposed to run across the road like that,” and then she turned to look at the truck driver now driving safely away and quipped, “That driver was a d*ck! Why’s he driving so fast in a school zone?” What? You’re angry at the driver who stopped with plenty of time and who was patient with you? That’s who you’re angry at? You and your husband let both your kids run across the road. You two are responsible for their safety and for teaching them not to do that. Be angry at the kids for being stupid. Be angry at yourselves for being stupid and not teaching them better. You should’ve been super apologetic to the driver and thankful he was alert enough to stop. You should also be thankful he was so gracious with your family’s gong show (I said overly nice people can make me angry; and she was overly nice to her family while transferring her anger to an innocent person). I once had a four year old daughter almost go on the road and a driver who was nearby slowed down to scream at me, “Watch your f’ing kids!” Give responsibility to the proper parties. Instead she went passive aggressive: “This is someone else’s fault!”
A parent’s job is to teach their kids not to need them (and how not to die). It’s the school’s job to teach kids valuable knowledge for a better future and how to properly interact in a community. It’s a community’s job to help support each other, but not to take over their lives. We need to take responsibility for our own lives and let others take responsibility for theirs. Otherwise, we become overly controlling, which means we’re stealing their freedom.
This week may you consider what it means to accept responsibility while letting others accept theirs.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)