A loaded question

A dear friend of mine asked me the other day, "Do you think I'm too rigid?"

A loaded question.

One of the reasons people like me is that I'll call a spade a spade, but I'll always do it nicely, with a smile and a hug when needed. Like Vulcans, Martians can't lie. They can dissemble, prevaricate, or simply clam up, but they can't lie. Sometimes that translates into a devil-may-care attitude of being willing to "go there" when other people wouldn't. They know I mean well, clumsy though I may be with other people's human feelings.

Wheee!!!! I decided to "go there."

"Yes, I think you can be too rigid," I said. "Like you were back there, with the ineffectual man behind the counter in the store. You got impatient with him because he was ignoring me. And did you see how I behaved with him? I was nice. I was patient. And I didn't get worked up about how he was ignoring me."

"Yes, he WAS ignoring you!" she said. "What's so important about a workman fixing a light, when you're standing there to be waited on?"

"Certainly it was a bit rude," I said, "but you have to remember that he's getting paid a poor wage to do a relatively menial job. And he has a lot of different things demanding his attention, such as workmen who are repairing the store around him. The thing I focus on is, I am lucky to have the job and the life that I have, because a stroke of bad luck could put ME behind that counter in his place. I always try to be kind and patient with customer service people, because they get paid shit to do a shitty job, and there's no point in making their lives more difficult than they already are."

"Hmmmm," she said, unconvinced.

"And, think of it this way," I said. "What else do we have to do? Did we have anywhere important to go? No. An extra five minutes in the store is not going to kill us. And by being nice to him, we got better service than if we had been nasty to him."

"Yesssss..." she said, nodding.

"And my smile might be the only smile he sees all day."

"True," she agreed.

"And besides, if he was smart, he'd be working at NASA."

"Absolutely true!" She laughed.

"So my point is," I continued, "you can choose to be irritated when people don't live up to your expectations, or you can simply accept what they are willing and able to give. You hold yourself to a very high standard. While it's fine to do that to yourself, and you achieve greater things because of it, it's not very fair to hold other people to that standard."

"I see," she said, looking thoughtful.

"And when you become irritated with people who fail to live up to your own standards of behavior, it only makes you unhappy. It doesn't really change their behavior. So when you ask me if I think you are rigid, I agree, you ARE rigid, in ways that work for you in achieving goals that you set for yourself, but they may not work for other people."

"Like my friends," she said, looking worried.

"Yes, and because they're your friends, they may not say anything to you about it, they just say among themselves, 'oh, that's just how she is.' So I think you might work on being less rigid, for two reasons: one, you will make yourself happier by NOT expecting much of people, and therefore you won't be disappointed when they fail to deliver; and two, you may find your relationships with your friends to be more relaxed and easygoing."

"Hmm." She looked thoughtful, and then she smiled. Her face lights up when she smiles.

"Thank you!" she said.

Whew.