About 20 years ago, when I was a graduate student in Tucson, Arizona, I befriended two neighbors who worked as traveling nurses taking short-term jobs at hospitals in interesting places around the country. John and Sue had met a few years earlier when they served together in a busy metropolitan hospital, an often stressful environment.
They dealt with patients and family members who were pushed to their physical, mental, and emotional limitations; fairly frequently this reality erupted in unpleasant behavior toward nurses, the frontline caregivers. My friends described experiences of being yelled at, punched, and more while working in this setting. As you might imagine of people willing to move to a new hospital every few months, these two are adventurous, optimistic, compassionate, and tough, so they found positive ways to deal with their challenges.
When I met them, they had a long-standing shorthand for talking about unpleasant people. They explained the history of their catchphrase to me, but also helped me understand that over time they 麻豆精品 S檇 come to apply this analysis to people outside the hospital. If聽someone cut them off in traffic, acted like a jerk in a public place, or otherwise behaved obnoxiously,聽they 麻豆精品 S檇 look at each other and say, 麻豆精品 S淪he 麻豆精品 S檚 in pain, 麻豆精品 S� or 麻豆精品 S淗e 麻豆精品 S檚 in pain, 麻豆精品 S� chuckle a bit, and move on without taking the incident personally.
While pain doesn 麻豆精品 S檛 explain or justify every negative experience we have with our fellow humans, I do think that John and Sue were onto something here.
Despite the arguably substantial number of what psychologist Martha Stout calls 麻豆精品 S渢he sociopath(s) next door, 麻豆精品 S� I would argue that many of the people we encounter in daily life are struggling with something painful, though our frequent phatic questions like 麻豆精品 S淗ow are you? 麻豆精品 S� and 麻豆精品 S淎re you having a good summer? 麻豆精品 S� rarely elicit the details of those challenges.
And while MIT professor Sherry Turkle, who has long studied human/computer interaction, argues that we find ourselves 麻豆精品 S渁lone together 麻豆精品 S� on social media, I had to look no further than my Facebook account to find evidence of these struggles.
This week a close friend of mine is recovering (fantastically, bravely, but painfully) from a bilateral mastectomy. My classmate from junior high is mourning the sudden death of her father, and at least three of my contacts are worrying over pets with serious illnesses. One close friend is requesting prayer for her daughter, who is on a mission trip in an area hit hard by a recent typhoon. And everyone who teaches college (a big chunk of my social circle) is beginning to fret over the impending end of another too-short summer and the beginning of another crazy fall.
Meanwhile, more than one of my admittedly middle-aged network is in physical pain with an abscessed tooth or injured back. Of course, like anyone else 麻豆精品 S檚, my news feed is also full of joyful announcements of pregnancies, pictures from once-in-a-lifetime vacations, news about exciting new jobs and relationships, and, just now, the victorious end to the search for the perfect burrito.
So the humble point of this column is not to bring us all down and suggest that we 麻豆精品 S檙e constantly surrounded by secret misery. It 麻豆精品 S檚 just to remind others and myself to give people a break when we can.
Having taught college for almost 25 years, I have heard lots of classroom excuses, such as grandmothers who mysteriously manage to die twice in one year to every make and model of computer and transportation problem. A good number of them have been true; a smaller but not inconsequential portion have been dubious at best, but I do not regret a single time when I have given a grieving or stressed-out person a kind response, a bit of perspective, a little break. And I can think of some instances where I wish I 麻豆精品 S檇 been more compassionate, patient, and engaged.
But if I 麻豆精品 S檓 going to buy into the 麻豆精品 S減eople are in pain; give them a break 麻豆精品 S� mindset, and encourage others to do so, I have to apply it to myself and recognize that there are good reasons from my own life why I 麻豆精品 S檝e been unable to be my ideal self in many situations.
A few days ago I was short-tempered with a seemingly disorganized host at a local restaurant.听When I stopped to think about it, I realized I was being unnecessarily grouchy because I was in pain. Not emergency room pain, of course 麻豆精品 S攏ot physical pain or even emotional anguish 麻豆精品 S攂ut discomfort and disappointment, however mild, along with underlying worries that I needed to release.
I thought in that moment, as I often do, of my friends John and Sue, and about the importance of letting things go, laughing things off, and moving on.听
That awareness (along with the perfect burrito) is my wish for everyone.
Melody Bowdon is executive director of UCF 麻豆精品 S檚 Karen L. Smith Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning and is a professor of writing and rhetoric.听She can be reached at melody@ucf.edu.听