Discipline

I’ve witnessed a ton of small-town drama in Cedar Rapids. It’s as if I’m back in high school, replete with cliques and gossip. Part of me wishes they’d just shoot each other like they do in the city. (This is the point where, to be pc, I’m supposed to add “j/k.”)

I have this co-worker who talks loudly, disrespectfully and constantly about everyone and everything. She is impatient and impertinent. She seems easily agitated and full of pet peeves. I can’t figure out why she refuses to keep her own council. In other words, she reminds of ways I have frequently behaved. But the most annoying thing about her is that whenever anybody asks a question, she fidgets and rolls her eyes. Then like clockwork, presumably because she just heard an answer out of context, she asks THE EXACT SAME QUESTION.

Frankly, most people annoy me. I used to be a staunch adherer to Socrates’ approach toward others, whereby one should point out logical flaws and unquestioned assumptions in others until they poison you. Now, I’m more inclined to let fools be. It is frustrating that the idiot majority has more clout than me in political and social decisions, but it is futile to try and reason with unreasonable people. It seems the better policy is to live and let die. It is possible and preferable to dislike personalities, attitudes and behaviors without letting them irritate you.

There’s this other co-worker who is paranoid about being disrespected and/or disliked, and as a result is easily rattled. He’ll take the subtlest things as an insult and lash out in anger, insisting upon his ethical superiority. He spends much of his time oscillating between shaking his head, gesturing loudly and laughing hysterically. He’s the type who brags loudly that there’s nobody in Cedar Rapids who can knock him out. I don’t see the point in being able to take a punch if you can’t even take criticism. I doubt he’s ever seen Cool Hand Luke. To me the question in life is not whether you can take a punch, but whether you can take a punch without punching back. To me the question in life is not whether you can be knocked down, but whether you can get back up and take another.

To borrow a scene from Fight Club, discipline is found in letting go of the steering wheel at 60 mph and staring silently and fearlessly into the oncoming headlights....