I have noticed that curiosity can unlock a misunderstanding. Wondering why someone acts the way they do loosens your grip on blame. It makes sense, and theoretically I believe it. But actually doing it is a bear.
One time I had a strained conversation with someone. Her words stung, and my defenses arrived faster than the guards at the Louvre when you touch a painting. The interaction is over but the rebuttals keep rehashing in my head like a well rehearsed play. Yet the ending stays the same.
I am right to feel the way I do and she is wrong to feel the way she does.
I watched a talk by a man named
Lewis Pugh who chose to swim across a lake formed by the melting ice cap of Mount Everest. He has an impressive history of cold swims, including one across the North Pole, and his stance has always been one of aggression. Sheer strength of will enabled him to pummel through obstacles.
But this time, as chance would have it, there was a massive effort to clean up the mountain in progress. Everest is the graveyard of hundreds of would be mountaineers and their paraphernalia of expensive equipment. Hence as he was climbing up, there was a morbid procession of corpses coming down.
When Lewis was ready, he plunged into the frigid water in his speedo, but his assault on the lake failed. In minutes he was vomiting, sinking and drowning. His team yanked him out, wrapped him in blankets and hunkered down to debrief.
"You need a radical tactical shift. Up until now you have used aggression as your fuel, but it is time for a different strategy. You must be humble. In the past you have tried for speed, but now you need to swim slowly, deliberately."
They were right. Lewis was smart enough to listen, and two days later swam with the lake instead of against it.
I wonder if the stance of defensiveness that I am so skilled at is no longer serving me. If I want to stay on my side of the lake, where I am right and someone else is wrong, so be it. But if I actually want to cross over and see life from her shore I need to be humble.
Maybe the play in my head can finally end differently.
.
