Enjoying the Drama

Every Saturday during the school year, and 6 days-a-week during the summer, from the 8th grade through my sophomore year in college, I worked for my dad and uncle in their mid-size grocery store on the west side of Chicago.

Working in a family business has its plusses and minuses.  For me, the minuses occurred when my buddies were out playing baseball during summer vacation, and I was putting in a 60-hour workweek.  But on the plus side, working in a family grocery store gave me an education about customer service that was not a part of the curriculum in college.  And the lessons learned at Sentry Foods served me well when I became the CEO of a prominent insurance brokerage in Denver.  And as a result of that ‘education,’ I’m a real stickler when it comes to service, so whenever I experience a lackadaisical or an indifferent attitude on the part of wait-staff, bank tellers or checkout clerks, it bothers me.  Perhaps my standards are too high, but if I’m going to pay someone hard-earned dollars, I want to at least see a modicum of interest or effort.

Not too long ago while I was having lunch with Bobbi at a local eatery and our waitress was slow and inattentive; it was quite obvious she was disinterested in her work and something all of us have experienced at one time or another.  So, how did I react?  Well, I did something any self-respecting eight-year-old would do, I got angry and allowed a person I did not know and would like likely never see again spoil my meal – shame on me!

Unfortunately, my attitude didn’t change when the meal was over.  After paying the bill and exiting the restaurant I continued grousing until it occurred to me that if I didn’t change my attitude, her attitude would dictate my emotions for the rest of the day.  OK, we’ve all been there, and we all get that, but just how does one go about making oneself, “un-angry?”  To answer that I need to go back number of years when I read a wonderful book by Dr. David Richio, and in it I learned that in these types of situations, anger isn’t necessarily the emotion we’re experiencing because holding on to anger is impossible – I’ll repeat that for effect – holding on to anger is impossible because anger is the shortest lived emotion and cannot be held onto.

~ Anger or Drama? ~

By allowing that waitress’s actions to affect me I allowed “drama” to take hold of the situation.  I had forgotten that once anger is fully expressed (note the word fully,) relief and letting go is automatic.  I wasn’t holding onto anger, rather I was holding onto a “story line” that kept “the drama” of the situation ignited.  Some tell us that anger is a waste of time—but any psychologist worth his or her salt will tell you that’s not so.  Anger is a legitimate human emotion that everyone experiences from time to time.  More importantly, real anger must be expressed in order to maintain psychological health.  And the notion that anger must have an objective justification (a waitress’s indifferent attitude in my case) is irrelevant; feelings are real, and we express anger because it is real for us.

It’s not my intent to preach, but I wanted to share a life lesson, i.e., that it’s important to understand the difference between anger and drama.  True anger is brief and then let go of with a sense of closure; drama on the other hand is held on to and endures as resentment. Genuine anger does not lead to danger, distance, and violence—that’s drama.  And in this context, drama means ego-centered, manipulative theatrics with an explanatory storyline attached.  In fact, most of the time, what we think of as anger, is in reality a set of storylines & drama.  True anger informs, it’s drama that frightens.  Real anger is meant to communicate whereas drama is meant to silence.  Legitimate anger needs no response from others, but drama insists that others see how justified one’s “anger” is.  And lastly, real anger can coexist with other feelings; drama on the other hand occludes other feelings.

So how does one make oneself ‘un-angry?’  One doesn’t—because real anger is brief, cleansing, and absent resentment.  The best we can do when we momentarily lose our equanimity is to stop and think about what’s really going on inside of us and then ask ourselves if we’re really angry or just replaying a set of storylines and enjoying the drama?

Quote of the Day: “Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools”—Albert Einstein