The other day, I spent a fair amount of time with someone who had very strong political leanings and opinions completely opposite of mine. That's fine and I'm okay with people having different views and beliefs. That's life and we all have to navigate awkward waters sometimes.
Anyone who knows me knows where I stand politically, something I'm not even going to clarify now because that's not what this is about.
What started out as a healthy political discussion (his insistence, not mine), evolved over the course of a few hours into what felt like an attack. We didn't discuss politics the entire time, but clearly my companion, whom I was forced to spend several hours in a moving car with, was annoyed. Not annoyed, angry. And it became very clear after our fervent political discussion was over, that I had touched a nerve with him because for the entire car ride, he became very provocative and antagonistic in a passive-aggressive way.
"I suppose you don't like the way I drive."
"The light was yellow but you'd probably say it was red."
This kind of behavior continued the entire ride. He provoked, I said nothing. The more I said nothing, the more he provoked. I never felt physically threatened in any way, yet I was clearly under attack.
As a peace-loving soul, it was perplexing and frazzling. I came home to my beautiful wife, Katie, feeling drained and exhausted. She is remotely acquainted with him and pointed out that he had a very difficult upbringing - the son of an alcoholic who was raised to fight the same way.
Anger is such a wasteful emotion. When did we lose our ability to have differences of opinions without attacking each other? I'm fine with anyone who feels strongly about something - more power to you as long as no one gets hurt. But this man's behavior went above and beyond and it saddened me to think that he cannot separate his anger from his hurt. It took a lot of soul searching on my part to brush off the emotional shrapnel to get to a point where I had compassion for him because clearly he is a product of his upbringing.
Will I put myself in a position to be in a moving car with him for hours ever again? No, but I have reached out to him to say I'm sorry our difference of opinion evolved into something negative and he has apologized for being so antagonistic - which led to a healthy discussion about why he is that way and his revelations about his family history. What he endured as a child of an alcoholic has put him in a different, more compassionate light.
The next time you feel yourself provoked to anger, stop, breathe, and think about what good it does - to you as the projectile, and to your intended target. Passion and conviction are not the same as anger. Passion and conviction are beliefs. Anger is just that - a negative, storm-ridden emotion that suits no purpose other than hurting you and others.
Think about it...
