A couple days ago I was in a meeting with the senior managers of a large local non-profit and I found myself bothered by the end of it. One of the people - another consultant actually - seemed to be treating me poorly. There were bunches of times...

At one point, I was introducing a potentially tense discussion about what would make the group work well together. I was saying something about the importance of everyone assuming good faith and everyone struggling to make the assumption that others also want what's best. I made a comment about how our different histories, styles, and experiences are such drivers behind the conflicts between people. How can we get beyond "the war of the minds" - my mind is right, yours is wrong.

This other person interrupts me, and says something to the effect of "Listen, I'm a pragmatist, and we got to keep this simple. My rule for people is a lot simpler: "Always work to give the benefit of the doubt."

She did it with a tone that had me with this instinctive feeling of being dismissed. (I actually liked her point, and it might well have been an improvement over mine. A much simpler construction, yes.)

But she seemed rude, and this was another in a chain of interactions with her that were not much fun. Others in the room noticed the same thing and commented to me, adding fuel to the negatvity. Making matters worse were her various comments within our larger process of working together regarding how much she "appreciated the collaboration between us." I found myself instinctively not believing it. Did she mean it?

These were my thoughts. I was being wronged! I continued to be nagged over a couple days, feeling solidarity with my strong sense of "being disrespected," "not being valued," etc. Along with this came, well, a dislike of her and reveries regarding how I "wouldn't ever work with her again." I found myself thinking through various compelling, articulate ways that I might describe and devalue her to others were the chance to arise.
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But then, I found myself looking in at my mind and ... these thoughts themselves! This organism known as Steve Forman and his instinctive fragility. What were these obsessions? What was this vulnerability? Who was the "me" that was feeling so diminished?

And who was this other person...this person with whom my mind was in battle? Did I actually know what she thought? Was she her mind? And what if she didn't like me? Did I even know? I was the one engaged in the disliking!

And then I had such a sense that she - like me - was probably captivated and controlled by her thoughts, her ideas, her senses of what was important and right.

I'll bet she looked at her behavior vis a vis me as being honorable, decent...
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What an ephemeral thing these minds of ours are. As if these thoughts somehow were us. Is that all we are? A stream of beliefs and thoughts?

The more I looked in at myself, the more the sense of the injured "me" seemed nothing more than ephemera... thoughts floating by. What is this mind that so wants to preserve itself and so needs to prevail and win and come out on top?

I find it fascinating to think about the distinction between what actually is happening out there, and my thoughts about these things. So many of our emotional problems arise from our thoughts themselves.

After a couple days, I completely forgot about her and the interactions.


Lagos, Nigeria