Curbing Our Anger
Most life situations resemble icebergs - less than 10% are visible to the casual viewer, and the other 90% are below the surface, hidden from the eye...
We continue with the topic of how to make peace with our fellow man. Of the Five Similarities between Angry People and Tyrants, we have already explained the first point; namely: Anger based on superficial or circumstantial evidence. We learned how easy it is for anger to block our ability to judge our fellow man fairly.
Point Two: Denying a person the benefit of the doubt, and therefore considering him guilty before he has a chance to prove otherwise.
Let's illustrate this point with another story from Old Isaac's inn:
Old Isaac and Sir Edgar Pritchard
Sir Edgar Pritchard is an extremely wealthy, but frugal, investment banker. He divides his time between his main residence in Manchester and his office in London. More than that, I don't know much about him except that he suffers from respiratory ailments, which the damp air of Manchester and the smog of London aggravate even more.
Sir Edgar's personal physician once visited Old Isaac's inn, and suggested that the crystal clear air of the mountain environment would be beneficial to Sir Edgar's health. Sir Edgar's personal secretary made a long distance phone call to Old Isaac, and inquired about renting a room for his employer.
Sir Edgar was thrilled to discover that a week in Old Isaac's inn would be cheaper than an overnight in a Scottish mountain resort, and booked the reservation. He found Old Isaac, the inn, and the entire surroundings enchanting, and came home feeling like a new man. Since his first stay at the inn ten years ago, Sir Edgar has become one of Isaac's annual guests.
Old Isaac makes everyone feel like nobility. He was always especially careful about honoring Sir Edgar in a manner befitting a gentleman knighted by the Queen of England.
Normally, Sir Edgar arrives at the inn by way of the limousine shuttle service from the airport, escorted by his valet and his personal secretary. Usually, before the chauffer has a chance to open the door of the limo, Old Isaac rushes down the front porch steps of the inn to greet Sir Edgar and to help him out of the car. Sir Edgar savors the warmth and sincerity of his host's welcome, a heartwarming beginning to a lovely week of relaxation in the exhilarating mountain setting.
In July of 1998, Sir Edgar arrived for his annual week at the inn. Even at ninety years old, Isaac hurried down the front steps of the inn. Without opening the door, he waved a perfunctory hello, rushed over to Jerry Miller's waiting Jeep, and drove away in a cloud of dust.
Sir Edgar fumed. The old innkeeper seriously slighted him. A moment of wrath wiped the ten previous years' cordial greetings from his mind (remember Chapter Three, Damage Number 11: "Anger causes amnesia").
"How dare the crass old innkeeper ignore me like that," Sir Edgar thought, "how often does nobility frequent these shabby premises?" He considered returning to the airport, but he was exhausted from his journey, and the idea of additional travel seemed appalling. He nodded his head, and the valet took his luggage inside the inn.
Rebecca, Isaac's wife, had a table set with her best white linen tablecloth, porcelain tea service, a carafe of freshly brewed tea, and an assortment of homemade cookies in anticipation of the arriving guest. The mountain hospitality somewhat mollified Sir Edgar. Still, the thought of being slighted by the old innkeeper perturbed him.
The whine of a siren and the screech of skidding tires startled Sir Edgar. He looked out the dining room window, and saw a forest ranger's dark-green patrol vehicle pull up in the front driveway. Kirk Mitchell came bounding through the front door of the inn. "Isaac! Where's Isaac?" he yelled.
Rebecca wiped her wet hands on her apron, and rushed from the kitchen through the dining room, to the entrance foyer of the inn. "Mr. Mitchell, Isaac's already on his way to Peace River with Jerry Miller. He knows about the lost child. Jerry's two sons found the parents, and they called Isaac before they called you." Kirk Mitchell left the inn in a bigger whirlwind than he entered.
Sir Edgar raised a brow at the tumult. "What's going on, here? Who was that man in the brown uniform? What's all the fuss about?"
Rebecca, overwhelmed with concern about the missing child, answered incoherently, "A family from Germany…our guests…they went rafting…in the whitewater…we didn't want to worry you with our troubles, Sir Edgar…Oy vey, their raft turned over! Their eight-year-old son…their only child…he's missing!"
Sir Edgar cleared his throat. The pieces of the puzzle began coming together to form an eye-opening picture. "Let the authorities search for the lad. What's an old chap like Isaac chasing off into the woods for?"
To Rebecca, Isaac was no old chap; he was her knight in shining armor. Her eighty-year-old heart still skipped a coquettish beat every time she looked at him. Yet, Rebecca wasn't insulted by Sir Edgar's insensitive comment; she knew that he meant no harm.
Rebecca answered patiently, "No one, not even the forest ranger, knows this mountain and the river as well as Isaac does. He stands a better chance than anyone of finding that child. The Almighty knows how he cherishes life, especially human life…Dear God in Heaven, blessed Creator, please spare that child…oh, excuse me, Sir Edgar. The Peace River Rapids area is dangerous. I'm going back to the kitchen to pray until Isaac returns home safely with the lost child."
Sir Edgar was overwhelmed by the inner strength and quiet conviction of the 102-pound withered sack of skin and bones that was Isaac's better half. He couldn't imagine his own wife steadfastly backing him or praying for his well-being.
He remained alone in the dining room. His personal secretary and his valet had taken the luggage upstairs, to his favorite room with the breathtaking view. At first, he scoffed at the idea of the old innkeeper running off to the woods to save a German child. Sir Edgar still had painful memories of the blitz, as a six-year-old child in London of 1939. "The war's over," he pondered, "but I wouldn't go out of my way to rescue a German."
People say that the walls and the rafters of the inn are soaked with Isaac's compassion and kindness. The atmosphere of the inn dining room, together with the quiet solitude, put a hairline crack in the wall of Sir Edgar's emotional castle. He gazed in the bottom of his teacup, and felt a warm flush of shame on his cheeks. Sir Edgar hated to admit an error, but remembered a quotation from Shakespeare's Hamlet, when Polonius said to Laertes, "But above all, my son, to thine own self be true." True, he pondered, the biggest liar is one who lies to oneself.
The picture was obvious. Isaac neither slighted him nor insulted him. Isaac had no time to spend on the pomp and procession of the royal red-carpet greeting to which Sir Edgar felt entitled. Isaac was rushing to save a life, and willing to risk his own life in the process.
Sir Edgar was suddenly blessed with a moment of truthful insight – "Yes, German or not, a child's life takes precedence to my momentary self-indulgence. My anger at Isaac is unfair and unfounded; I should have given him the benefit of the doubt. Look at the nobility of his deeds."
Three hours later, shortly before sundown, Isaac and Jerry Miller returned to the inn with a teary but elated Jurgen and Anna Heller, together with freckle-faced eight-year-old Johannes wrapped in a blanket at their side. Outside of a chill from his sopping wet clothes and a bellyache from eating too many wild raspberries, the child was fine. When his family's rubber raft turned over, Johannes was immediately thrown ashore; the foaming whitewaters dragged his parents for another half a mile before they succeeded to reach an overhanging log and pull themselves to safety.
As you might have expected, Isaac was the one who found the little boy, napping on a bed of pine needles. Later, Kirk Mitchell commented that if they hadn't found the boy by nightfall, the predators would have; a lone little boy couldn't have survived the night. In short, Isaac saved a life.
* * *
Moral of the story:
Sir Edgar, like other egocentric people, has difficulty seeing beyond his own inflated image. Oblivious of the world around him, he takes no initiative in trying to find out why Isaac was in such an uncharacteristic hurry; he comes to the premature conclusion that the innkeeper deliberately slighted him. Sir Edgar fails to give Isaac the benefit of the doubt, and forgets about Isaac's ten previous years of flawless service. Only when the situation becomes obvious – that Isaac has embarked on a mission to save a life – does Sir Edgar begin to judge Isaac fairly.
Most life situations resemble icebergs – less than 10% are visible to the casual viewer, and the other 90% are below the surface, hidden from the eye. Any ship captain knows that if he doesn't consider the massive, below-surface hidden part of the iceberg, he's liable to wreck his ship. The same holds true in most life situations: Decisions made on the basis of scant superficial facts are usually tragically erroneous. Giving a person the benefit of the doubt is like believing that there's more to an iceberg than what appears on the surface.
Amazingly, people discover more than justified reasons for their fellow man's inexplicable behavior once they grant the benefit of the doubt.
Point Three: Failing to consider a fact that could overturn a verdict.
Lisa Kaye and the Cookie Quandary
Lisa Kaye is an effervescent advertising executive from San Francisco and the life of the party wherever she goes. She's also an annual guest at Isaac's inn. One Sunday evening by the fireplace, she riveted the other guests to their seats with the following story of her unforgettable business trip to Chicago:
Lisa's meeting with a client ran overtime. When they finally completed their negotiation, she looked at her watch and double-checked her plane ticket; the departure time of her return flight to San Francisco was in less than two short hours, so she had no time to lose. She flagged a taxi, and promised the driver a ten-dollar tip if he could get her to the airport on time.
The taxi zigzagged its way through traffic jams, ice, and sleet, arriving at the airport twenty-five minutes before takeoff. After a mad rush to the check-in counter, she discovered that the flight was delayed for half an hour. Her sigh of relief was certainly worth the extra ten dollars she paid the driver.
Lisa checked in, and then took the escalator to the departures lounge. Suddenly, she realized she hadn't eaten all day long. Hunger pangs clutched her stomach, but she didn't have time for a meal in the cafeteria. She opted for the vending machines, and purchased a soft drink and a stack of chocolate cookies.
The lounge was packed. Lisa surveyed the entire room, and couldn't find a place to sit. Finally, someone vacated a seat by a two-person table. She sat down, and a well-groomed white-haired gentleman smiled at her from across the table. She popped open her can of soda, and said, "Cheers!" Her tablemate flashed another warm smile in return. She then opened the stack of chocolate cookies that was on the table, pulled out the tightly packed first cookie, and began munching on it with delight.
To Lisa's amazement, her tablemate – with neither prior notice nor permission – extended his gold cufflink-sleeved arm and withdrew a cookie for himself. What's going on here? She couldn't decide whether the man was trying to make an overture, or whether he was simply too cheap to buy his own cookies.
Lisa took a second cookie. The stately gentleman with the amicable disposition smiled again, and withdrew another cookie for himself. She could feel her blood pressure skyrocketing. This fancy-looking gent in his gray tweed suit with his gold watch is nothing other than a cheeky old man! Where does he get the audacity to invite himself for snack time, and at my expense?
Defiantly, Lisa grabbed a third cookie. For the third time, she received the same warm smile in return. The gentleman then took another cookie for himself. She had never seen such gall in her entire life!
The announcement came over the loudspeaker, calling the San Francisco-bound passengers to board immediately at Gate 23. One cookie was left in the package. The white-haired gentleman took the last cookie, broke it in half, and with another toothpaste-commercial smile, offered one of the halves to Lisa. She nearly screamed, snatched the half cookie out of his hand, and ran to catch her plane.
The whole way to Gate 23, she kept shaking her head from side to side in disbelief, astonished at the nerve of people. "I've seen wise guys in my time," she mumbled, "but that cookie snatcher tops them all!"
She boarded her plane, found her seat in the plush business class section of the aircraft, and stored her overnight case in the compartment above her head. She belted herself in her seat, and then opened her purse to pull out the paperback that she had started to read on the flight to Chicago. An unopened stack of chocolate cookies stared her in the face. She shrieked in horror.
"Is everything OK?" inquired a nearby stewardess.
"Oh no, I-I mean yes; I accidentally bit my tongue", Lisa answered feebly.
Tears of embarrassment and frustration welled in her eyes. She accused, tried, and convicted an innocent, cordial, and well-mannered gentleman of crimes he never committed. She was incensed with him, as if he were nothing better than a rude and audacious miser of dubious morality! What a turn of events – she herself was guilty of everything she accused him!
"You, Lisa," she scolded herself, "are the piggish intruder! You ate his cookies!" Even more frustrating, she didn't know the man's name or address, so she could at least send him a letter of apology.
* * *
The moral of the cookie story:
Such an amazing story leads to one cogent conclusion: A key missing fact can completely overturn our bad judgment of a fellow human. In the bustle of the crowded lounge after her mad rush to the airport, Lisa didn't notice that she had dropped her own cookies in her handbag. Her anger at her tablemate was based on the mistaken premise that his cookies were hers.
What Lisa considered the epitome of gall, was really a hallmark of virtue, kindness, generosity, and patience.
Don't ever judge another person unless you're sure you have all the facts. Chances are that your anger at your fellow man is based on utter misinformation.
To be continued . . .
(The Trail to Tranquility is available in the Breslev Store.)
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