59. We Make Our Misfortune

Pop Quiz:

1. I drove my car while I was drunk, and I was pulled over and arrested. Who is to blame for the detention and fines that turned out to be a serious hassle?a) Society is
b) My parents are
c) I am
d) Those meddling cops are

 

2. I poured a kettle of boiling water over my leg, and suddenly experienced severe pain and some blistering. Who is to blame for this injustice?

a) The people at the water company are
b) I am
c) The manufacturers of the kettle with inadequate safety markings are
d) Those meddling cops are

3. I stomped into a foreign country, demanding that those who were there treat me specially because I’m an American and people should just deal with it. The locals began to treat me with disrespect and I quickly realized that they were starting to serve me a little slower, a little less enthusiastically, and without a smile. Who is responsible for this outrage?

a) I am
b) The local national President or Prime Minister is
c) The stupid local population is
d) Those meddling cops are!

 If you answered 1 – c; 2 – b; and 3 – a, you got a perfect score!

It’s not cliche to say that “what goes around comes around”. Well, okay, maybe that is a cliche, but the important thing to recognize is that cliches are often based on objective reality. Obviously, although many an arrested lawbreaker blames the arresting officers, the guilty party chose a behavior with full knowledge of the potential consequences.

In the hilarious film, “Liar, Liar”, Jim Carrey plays a top-shelf defense attorney who is incapable of lying for one 24-hour period. When he’s called by a career thug/client who’s been locked up again and the fellow asks for legal advise, this lawyer replies with brutal honesty, “You want some legal advise? Stop breaking the law, a$$#0£3!”

Couldn’t we all do with a such valuable legal advice? I don’t mean that we are all career thugs, but that we all (to some extent) go against what we know is right and then find ourselves asking what went wrong. We all (to some extent) find ourselves from time to time on the wrong side of a friend, loved one, or complete stranger and begin casting about for their part in the matter. Smart Power begins with the self.

Here’s another way to put it: have you ever had a strong, negative reaction to a person’s unacceptable behavior and then said that the person really made you angry? Well, if you are willing to blame him for causing that reaction in you, I’m sure you’ll be willing to acknowledge that you may have caused the same in someone else. In other words, it follows that at some time during your life you will have “really made someone angry”.

Now look at the implication. He wasn’t angry, then you did something, and he became angry as a result. You created an angry person from a not-angry one. You created the reality of having an angry person near you, and you created the reality of whatever transpired as a result of that. Did he yell at you? Did he kick you in the knee? Did he make fun of the car you drive?

You created that negative event, whatever it was. If you had chosen some other behavior, one that would not have “made” him angry, you wouldn’t have your feelings, knee, or pride hurt. You created your own hurt.

Many of my readers will say, “Oh, yeah, that makes sense.” They’ll ponder this idea and come to the conclusion that a little more mindfulness of our effect on others might go a long way – not necessarily for the benefit of the others, but for our own! Being decent to others, therefore, is in my own self interest, regardless of the fact that it improves the lives of others.

Smart Power, then, or Powerful Peace, is a way of making my personal environment better – extended to global relations, it seems obvious that the same principles can ease at least a little of the sometimes explosive clash of cultures.

 If, on the other hand, you think this is a load of hogwash and it makes you angry…please don’t kick me in the knee.

Copyright © 2009 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.

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