Here’s the scene: It’s
midday at Trader Joe’s and I’m ready to check out. I push my cart into a line and immediately
check Facebook on my phone. (I always
pick the longest line by mistake, so I have learned to just distract
myself.) The woman who has been front of
me, cartless, proceeds to grab her cart from the line next to me, thus adding
one more cart between me and the cash register, and lengthening my wait. The woman in that line says, irritated,
“There’s someone behind you.” The woman
ignores her. The assertive woman urges
me to say something. I shrug my
shoulders, say, “It’s all good,” and continue to scan my newsfeed for
engagement rings and birth announcements.
This is a battle I am not choosing today.
Since I was tiny, I have not been very assertive or
aggressive, and yes, at times it has cost me.
I let kids walk over me throughout elementary school, insisting they’d
be my “best friend,” only to leave me for someone with more sparkly nail polish
the next week. I hated gym because I did
not care enough to try to wrestle a ball away from anyone. I was never one of those kids that ran to the
line—I didn’t mind being last; we’re all going to the same place. I have never seen those things as worth fighting
over.
When it comes to people I love, or ideas that are important
to me, I am fierce and I’m a fighter.
No, you may not call me “bitch” and ask for a second date with me. (Yes, this actually happened!) If you use racial slurs in front of me, I don’t
really want to hang out with you. I will
walk out of any church that preaches against homosexuality. I have no problem telling a friend that the
boy she is with is a jerk and she deserves better. I have almost gotten into fights with people
I have met, out for drinks with friends, who have made negative comments toward
my students and their families, particularly those who do not speak English
fluently.
However, in many respects, I am still not aggressive. Go ahead, take the parking spot. Pass me on the parkway. I am not going to race you for the best spot
in yoga class. I could care less. (Side note:
In North Jersey, if you are not an aggressive driver, you have zero
respect on the road. I am somehow able
to hold my head high anyway. Miracles
happen.)
Although I sit back, waving people on, calmly waiting to
exit the concert (we will all be stuck in traffic anyway), I notice that our
society has definitely become one that grabs, races, and always wants to be
first. It seems the competitive nature
that comes with capitalism and chasing the American dream has spilled into our
lives on the sidewalk, in the workplace, in our neighborhoods. We are taught to be aggressive (B-E AGGRESSIVE!)
and to get to the cash register, stadium entrance, past the bouncer, before
everyone else.
I wonder what this is doing for us as a people. Do we really feel that satisfied when
we beat the person behind us? Are we
really in that much of a hurry that we can’t be bothered by fact that we just
cut off the family in the other lane? I
once spent 10 minutes in the passenger seat of a friend’s car, where my friend
flipped off and cursed at a set of grandparents and their grandkids in the
Point Pleasant parking lot, all because the grandpa has supposedly stolen his
spot. I had to wonder if my friend
felt anything but mortified afterward, at having harassed the elderly. It’s just a stupid parking spot!
What if we took a moment, next time we wanted to race to the
line, and let the person in front of us go?
What if we just let the other person have the parking spot? What if we started to teach our kids to really
take turns, to let someone else go in front of them or take the first
cookie? I’m not saying that this is
easy, or that there are not times that warrant being assertive. I just wonder if teaching our kids to be more
loving would be more conducive to happiness, both to the kids who are sharing
and the ones being shared with.
Should I have spoken up to the lady in front of me? Maybe.
It wasn’t right that she blatantly cut me. Then again, to me, it REALLY wasn’t worth getting
upset over. It wasn’t worth any additional
aggression today (on her part or mine). Sometimes
keeping calm feels better than being right.
