A Lesson In Aggression
This morning I read an article in my phone's newsfeed. The article, titled "A wonderful sign of high IQ" told about how those with aggressive tendencies were less intelligent, while kinder, more easy going and hopeful people tended to be more intelligent.
And while on my way to work this afternoon I was convinced, at the grocery store later I was reminded of the dangers of even attempting to label people. Negativity, regardless of achievement or intelligence, is usually bad. Those words are even probably grouped together somewhere, some book of words, under the term "synonym" meaning same.
But before turning this article into a lesson on the literal word, let's talk about aggression. I can illustrate the point by the following stories which I was able to draw experience from, and then we can remember why negativity is bad.
On my way to work, after having read about aggressive behaviors and how they are symptomatic of frustration based on situational incompetency, I get into a sort of defining situation on a rather empty four lane road.
BE KIND
The road is wide but winding, and so the limit is listed 35 mph. I was hovering at just under 45, feeling a little heavy footed, I guess, and I wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't been for a rather clingy driver behind me, just about a half a cars length away. The car being so close, made me check my speed, to see if I was going annoyingly slow, and then I looked to my right, to see an empty lane. Why was this person driving so fast on my back end and not going around me?
I started to think of my article, and aggression and stupidity. Clearly, that is true!
Good, fine. We have established fact in one experiment.
But then something else happened. Later on there was aggression, but I was able to empathize. And suddenly, I didn't want to judge this man's intelligence any more.
I went to a grocery store with one of those painful self check outs. I bought one item. Even though the machine prompts you to use a bag, I really didn't need one. I grabbed my bag absent mindedly, but then attempted to put it back. I have a no waste policy with plastic and I am almost completely trained.
And while on my way to work this afternoon I was convinced, at the grocery store later I was reminded of the dangers of even attempting to label people. Negativity, regardless of achievement or intelligence, is usually bad. Those words are even probably grouped together somewhere, some book of words, under the term "synonym" meaning same.
But before turning this article into a lesson on the literal word, let's talk about aggression. I can illustrate the point by the following stories which I was able to draw experience from, and then we can remember why negativity is bad.
On my way to work, after having read about aggressive behaviors and how they are symptomatic of frustration based on situational incompetency, I get into a sort of defining situation on a rather empty four lane road.
The road is wide but winding, and so the limit is listed 35 mph. I was hovering at just under 45, feeling a little heavy footed, I guess, and I wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't been for a rather clingy driver behind me, just about a half a cars length away. The car being so close, made me check my speed, to see if I was going annoyingly slow, and then I looked to my right, to see an empty lane. Why was this person driving so fast on my back end and not going around me?
I started to think of my article, and aggression and stupidity. Clearly, that is true!
Good, fine. We have established fact in one experiment.
But then something else happened. Later on there was aggression, but I was able to empathize. And suddenly, I didn't want to judge this man's intelligence any more.
I went to a grocery store with one of those painful self check outs. I bought one item. Even though the machine prompts you to use a bag, I really didn't need one. I grabbed my bag absent mindedly, but then attempted to put it back. I have a no waste policy with plastic and I am almost completely trained.
As soon as I have finished putting the bag back over the bars for another customer, the checkout customer service person rushes over to grab the bag. I advise him another customer can use the bag, and he becomes short with me, saying, "Don't worry about it. I get graded on my work here ."
I was about to grill him full on about this totally overbearing policy, when it occurs to me that, this guy is really upset. He wasn't asking me not to worry about it. He was telling me to just go! So I said nothing else to him, and walked out wondering how we compromise customer service for graded cleanliness.
Then it dawns on me. This guy was being aggressive. But he had every right to feel overwhelmed. He was compromising his common sense at a stupidly easy job. Common sense being, if you have the right employee, you shouldn't need to feel pressured by bully grades.
I read a psych article once about values.
It said that if you are put into a situation where you are being forced to compromise your values, you exhibit strange behaviors. While aggression isn't really a strange behavior, it might be a parallel to this situation.
The man was an upper-middle aged African American. He looked like a respectable guy, a family man. Why should he have to explain these rules, these ridiculous rules, to me?
His frustration, his aggression, was well founded. In a situation where you have no options but to submit to harsh realities, there can be times where a little humanity slips through.
It is human to have emotions. A lot of our modernity focuses on positivity. That's very good. But understanding that things are bad is also good, understanding is a powerful skill that the intelligent mind uses to restructure things that have gone awry. Without acknowledging that something is wrong, it cannot be made right.
I always loved how on the television sitcom "How I met your Mother" they managed to be kind toward even the most annoying personalities. The jealous girlfriend, the horrible womanizer, they were just people in the end, trying to make the best of this crazy life. It was so nice because, no one is infallible, and holding yourself above others is just jerky, anyway. These days everyone is a narcissist, but hey, there's a reason why they exist, and it's not because everything and everyone is so positive.
At the end of the day, when the episode is winding down, isn't it cool to climb into bed, feeling no regrets, not tied to extremes, expectations, and labels?
I was about to grill him full on about this totally overbearing policy, when it occurs to me that, this guy is really upset. He wasn't asking me not to worry about it. He was telling me to just go! So I said nothing else to him, and walked out wondering how we compromise customer service for graded cleanliness.
Then it dawns on me. This guy was being aggressive. But he had every right to feel overwhelmed. He was compromising his common sense at a stupidly easy job. Common sense being, if you have the right employee, you shouldn't need to feel pressured by bully grades.
I read a psych article once about values.
It said that if you are put into a situation where you are being forced to compromise your values, you exhibit strange behaviors. While aggression isn't really a strange behavior, it might be a parallel to this situation.
The man was an upper-middle aged African American. He looked like a respectable guy, a family man. Why should he have to explain these rules, these ridiculous rules, to me?
His frustration, his aggression, was well founded. In a situation where you have no options but to submit to harsh realities, there can be times where a little humanity slips through.
It is human to have emotions. A lot of our modernity focuses on positivity. That's very good. But understanding that things are bad is also good, understanding is a powerful skill that the intelligent mind uses to restructure things that have gone awry. Without acknowledging that something is wrong, it cannot be made right.
I always loved how on the television sitcom "How I met your Mother" they managed to be kind toward even the most annoying personalities. The jealous girlfriend, the horrible womanizer, they were just people in the end, trying to make the best of this crazy life. It was so nice because, no one is infallible, and holding yourself above others is just jerky, anyway. These days everyone is a narcissist, but hey, there's a reason why they exist, and it's not because everything and everyone is so positive.
At the end of the day, when the episode is winding down, isn't it cool to climb into bed, feeling no regrets, not tied to extremes, expectations, and labels?
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