The One Where I Pretend My Mind Hasn't Gone To Mush And Talk About Theories And Whatnot

Nearly 9 years ago when I met J, he gave me a book to read called Leadership and Self Deception. It's a fairly quick read and a really great book. It's a book I think everyone should read. Well, I was eager to discuss it's contents with J, but he was nowhere to be found. I think when we first met I had some old-fashioned idea that I wouldn't ever call boys. But this book made me desperate and I called him somewhere between 22 and 53 times in the next 5 days.

When we finally did talk, I had questions about the premise of us choosing how to react to a stimuli. It seems somewhat obvious to me now, but I am a mature, self-actualized, brilliant woman in my 30's now. I remember specifically wondering how it was that someone "chooses" anger when something happens to them that would obviously cause one to be angry.

And he explained with an example. You come out to your car that is parked on the street and find it completely bashed in. You are immediately angry. Bashed in cars can generally evoke anger. And you are angry at whoever bashed in your car. And you are justified. And then you learn that it was a meteor that hit your car. It couldn't have been helped and no one did it to you. The situation hasn't changed, but your emotions most likely will. And most likely you aren't/can't be angry anymore. And there you are, choosing what you feel.

Well, recently something happened that got me all worked up and angry. I was justified because it involved people being stupid. And I was mad and ready to sit down and vent and really go to town on my blog. I was going to describe the stupidity in such articulate detail, the readers would feel my pain, I would be the poor little victim, and it was gonna be good.

And literally as I was sitting down to write, I learned a new bit of information pertaining to the sitchee-ashun and suddenly I had no cause. It changed everything. This information totally took the wind out of my sails.

Well, writing for me is like a good little legal drug. It's cathartic and I love the feeling when I have a finished "story" in front of me. So I had the anticipation of that catharsis and the feeling of completion, just like a nice hot brownie with a scoop of French Vanilla on top. But suddenly I had nothing to write. No brownie to eat. No bowl to lick. No cathar to sis.

This was a very loud realization for me.

No one had changed, nothing had changed. Just my perception. And suddenly I wasn't in any way "justified" to be angry or to vent. Or to be a victim.

To be perfectly honest, this was a little depressing.

Later I was thinking about how when I'm driving, every car on the road is stupid except me. I can't stand tailgaters. I can't stand those people who speed up and pass you and quickly cut in front of you because you are being a decent driver and not tailgating. I can't stand people who think I should turn faster on a yield green than I do. I can't stand people who drive down turn lanes. Run red lights. Stop at yellow lights. Talk on their phones. Almost hit me. Sit at 4-ways waiting for Godot....etc, etc, etc.

And I have never done a single one of these things to anyone else.

Here's where my very valuable and relatively expensive college degree comes in.

In my social psych class we learned about an element of the attribution theory that is called "Fundamental Attribution Error."

You can look up what it means, but it will probably be shrouded in lots of unnecessary words because psychology doesn't take too kindly to being called "soft" and makes up for it with lots of extra unnecessary words.

Or you could keep reading and I'll tell you. It basically describes how when we are speeding down the road in our cars, we are late for work, or our spouse is in the care with a cut off limb and we're racing them to the hospital, or our brakes don't work. And we are completely justified in speeding down the road. But on another day, we see someone else speeding down the road and we think, "Jerk! Slow down! What? Does he want to kill someone driving that fast? What's wrong with people these days..." And we don't ever stop to think maybe his wife is in labor in the front seat, or he just got word that his child is in the emergency room, or his own finger is hanging by a thread. We know our own situations and we are justified. But we make snap judgments on people without ever considering their situation.

This knowledge I obtained in my early twenties---haunts me. I can't just get road rage and good-girl swear at people anymore. I can't act appalled and shake my head in disgust when I see moms yelling at their kids at stores. Just last week at Hobby Lobby I was the crazy hissing lady in aisle 8 threatening to spank my little princess all the way to the car.

No I wasn't, I was just kidding about that. In the same way that Avee is "just kidding" when she talks back. It totally happened, I'm just going to say I was kidding in hopes that you'll forget. Or think I'm cute and not care..

When I have moments like the above---when I'm about to vent and elicit sympathy and be totally justified, and suddenly it's taken away, not by the events changing, but by my information changing---I'm ashamed.

I'm ashamed that as an educated, fairly open-minded, well-rounded in more ways than one, decent human being---I am guilty of being a jerk. A judgmental jerk. And I think how much happier my life would be, if I didn't let myself be guilty of the FAE. Fundamental Attribution Error. FAE is what we call it around here.

And I can't help but think how much happier most of us would be if we didn't get sucked into it.

I think this will be one of my goals this year. I've already harnessed the empowering attitude of thinking everyone thinks I'm amazing and awesome and wants to be like me, so now I'm going to work on harnessing the, "don't be a schmuck, give people a break" attitude.

Who's in?