I think I've posted before about my annoyance with my office situation. We've had some new additions to the workplace, and some of them possess that opinionated, loud personality that almost always rubs me the wrong way. Look, I don't care if you know everything, I just don't want to hear about it. Endlessly. At high volume.
Anyway, I've been talking about it to some of my old friends in the Safety Office, and on Thursday, I went on an errand with one of them. His name is Danny.
Danny said something to me that kind of made me think.
He's a nice guy, younger than me, with a new little baby at home. We talk a lot about our kids. He did the "investigation" on me after I fell and after I reported that I was having problems with my finger. He's not the guy who helped me get my new mouse (I know Alex a little better; we sometimes go get lunch together). Both these people, though, are really sweet, easy to talk to, fun guys. And, it turns out that Danny, along with being a new dad and a surfer, is also a born-again Christian.
He and I talked about that a little, and he told me his story while we waited in line. It's nice, actually, to hear someone who is my age (sort of; I don't think he's even 30 yet; I'm a hundred) talk about Christianity in a logical way. Don't get me wrong: he's totally, head first, COMPLETELY in it. Normally when people want to talk to me about Christianity I break out in a spiritual rash. He told me that his only goal in life is to get to know Jesus and the teachings of Christianity. Somehow, though, maybe because of his funny and sweet personality, I was able to not feel the usual sort of complete desire to be somewhere else when he started talking about it. And, he's a great listener. I was complaining about the people in my office (they were particularly obnoxious Thursday morning), and then he told me something that I've actually heard before. He said, I just don't let that stuff bother me. He said, It doesn't matter in the long run, and I just don't care. He said, I probably do things that annoy other people! He said, I just try to be nice to everybody. He said: I have bigger things to think about (this one's not an exact quote).
You know what? Me too. Maybe not the same bigger things, but I'm going to try very hard to be nicer to these people. When I go home, I'm sure they don't think about me, and I don't think about them, but while we're all here in this office, I'm going to try to ignore the things that annoy me and be more patient. It might make me feel better.
You know, I know that when I write these kinds of things, it probably sounds like I'm an idiot. I mean, this seems so simple, and Danny's not the first person to tell me something like this. When I worked at the Rizzoli in Beverly Hills, I had a lot of the same sort of frustration. My friend Bo told me the exact thing. Bo's no Christian, nor is he particularly spiritual: that's not the point. The point is that these guys have some sort of thing inside that allows them to not worry about what other people are doing. I just don't. I'd like to acquire it, though. Is it wisdom? Confidence? Simple patience? I'm going to start by being kind. Maybe I'll be faking it a little at first. I'll just have to grow into it.
Wish me luck.
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