A long time ago on Twitter, someone posted a pretty cool question; In seven words or less, what you like to have written on your gravestone?
I replied “You should see the other guy”.
It got a few likes and I got the warm feeling of participation. But it wasn’t a joke.
When we hear that phrase, the “other guy” is usually someone who came off worse than we did in a fight. It’s usually used as dark humour, by men, to keep their machismo intact when they get a bloody nose in real life.
I’ve been around the block, so to speak, and part of that journey involved a few actual bloody noses in my early teens. This was back in the days when two young boys could have a fight, get a bloody nose each and then, if not shake hands after, at least be civil to each other in the future. These altercations were referred to as “straighteners” and were pretty acceptable in the 1980s. The idea of pulling a knife or using any kind of weapon in these fights would have ensured complete ostracization from the peer group, which was the ultimate fear for teenage boys. So at least in my experience, these never escalated into something worse.
Healthy, well-adjusted teens grow out of this phase very fast, where they enter it at all. If you’re over 16 and find yourself in a fight with another teenage male, then you might have other problems.
Having gotten into a few scrapes in my wayward youth has had its advantages though. I’m used to the type of people that, even in their older years, haven’t figured out that not everything is an honour battle and you simply don’t have to participate. These pop up all the time when you live in a city. I can usually avoid them simply by not being where they are, but that doesn’t always work. For example…
A couple of years ago I was walking in the park with my two young kids, hoping to see ducklings in the pond. Half-way along we walked through a narrow gap in the trees and interrupted a drug deal. The dealer became very insistent that we leave, cheerfully telling me he would knock me out in front of my (visibly scared) children, among other threats to me and to them.
A younger, stupider me would have happily invited him to test that assumption at his leisure (I’ve stolen that line from Captain Picard) and got right into it. Thankfully that didn’t transpire. I would probably have lost out to the two scumbags present and worse still, lost out in front of my kids, adding exponentially to an already traumatic experience. Chances are the dealer was carrying a weapon and would have used it too.
Instead I was extremely polite, never showed any fear whatsoever, maintained eye contact at all times and left the scene, to all appearances, on my own terms.
Assuming you’re not actually in a fight, an air of confidence and polite respect beats any martial arts move, simply because it stops a fight from kicking off. As my own son is entering his teens, this is and will continue to be my biggest refrain to him. “He disrespected me” is a commonly used reason for juvenile murders. Rob Henderson has written a brilliant article about this.
So I got home that afternoon and talked to my kids about the experience, explaining what had happened and assuring them that they were okay. I was bristling inside but I kept it hidden, safe in the knowledge that our friendly park pharmacist would eventually meet someone much, much worse than I could ever be.
Don’t wrestle with pigs – You both get dirty, but they like it
To get theoretical for a moment, the number of possible outcomes for that situation were infinite. A dispassionate observer could write any physically possible outcome using the just the information supplied.
And there were far more unknowns than knowns; Who was carrying a weapon? Who would use a weapon? Who was a better fighter? Who, including the children, would have been seriously hurt?
And also consider the negative ripple effects of any immediate outcome; enduring years of litigation in the glacial Irish criminal justice system, with all of its attendant trauma and possible threats, as the case rolled on. Not to mention the possibility that I might be the one on trial.
To the druggies we met in the park, that might have been a Tuesday. To me, it could have been years of distraction, trauma and legal fees. A life containing none of those things sounds pretty good. And it involves choosing composure over confrontation.
Choose your battles
During the Second World War, Victor Frankl spent three years in four concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Dachau. His book Man’s search for Meaning is required reading, but the for the purposes of this conversation there is a quote for which he is famous:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Choosing our battles means recognising our own boundaries, choosing forgiveness over resentment, and knowing when to walk away. And most powerfully, to forget about it. Because there is no win in revenge. It brings us down to the level that we perceive in our supposed “enemy”. If anything it makes us worse than them because we have made the choice to pursue it, forgetting that a world of wonder and wealth is wating for us to come and claim it. Optimists do not seek revenge. They’re too busy building and living their own, true life.
At various points in our lives, we’re going to meet the career equivalent of the school bully, the druggie in the park or the mugger on the street. And that experience is going to test us sorely. How we react in these circumstances can have profound effects on ourselves and those around us.
So we have a hard day and still do our best, we feel attacked and choose not to engage, we stay focussed on our work instead of playing dumb status games. Yes it’s exhausting, but sometimes that’s the price of admission to a better life. And by making the right choice, we don’t become, in the moment, the person who we don’t want to be.
The “Other Guy” is always ourselves, following one of an infinite number of possible outcomes. Some better, some worse. We want to avoid being the worse one.
So by the end of the day we’re tired. But we’re feeling good about ourselves. Psychologically we might feel a bit bruised and bloodied. Nothing we can’t get over. The good life is wating for us to come and live it.
But man, you should see the other guy.
Kevin Conway is an Executive and Leadership Coach. For coaching services, please see www.kevinconwaycoaching.com
References
Understanding the Young Male Syndrome by Rob Henderson (Paywall)
