We're all advised--in a fraught situation--to lead with one sentence. "The story I'm telling myself is....." We then list our comical misconceptions--and the other person can chuckle and say, "You have it all wrong! These aren't my intentions--not by a mile!"
I have a neighbor with an adolescent son. I've never spoken to this child, but I dislike him, because he and his friends leave their beer cans in my trash bin (which isn't for recycling). Additionally, he has painted his car with the words, "HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS!" ...And to me these words suggest a fatal lack of imagination--they seem to be the words of an idiot I would run far, far away from, if I were still in high school.
Also--recently--the teenager blocked my car. He parked in front of my driveway. It takes a special kind of nastiness to execute this douchebag move.
I have no trouble owning the fact that I am becoming a grumpy old man; soon, I will be waving a cane at the world, shouting, "Damn kids! Stay away from my sprinkler!" But I don't want to be *too* grumpy. The teenager did have an at-least-half-understandable reason for blocking my car--and I slipped. I didn't consider that there might be a legible-to-human-beings semi-reason. My email was too aggressive.
At the end of "Hamilton," Aaron Burr concedes that "the world was wide enough" for two arch-nemeses. Burr could have existed alongside Hamilton. I can exist alongside my thoughtless neighbor-teenager.
Baby steps.
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