Did You Intend to…?
How much better would your world be if other people just understood that you seldom intend to say or do whatever is annoying or frustrating them? Let's think about how that might work. People seldom intend to be jerks. I think we have all had to deal with someone who is just being a jerk. They are being difficult and impossible to cope with due to their seeming to be stupid, insensitive, hopelessly self-centered or clueless, or maybe all of the above. But are we ever the jerk in the picture? We sure don't intend to be the jerk but we probably have our jerk moments, at least from the perspective of other people. As reasonable and as appropriate as we try to be, even nice people like us may slip into jerk mode at times. People seldom intend to do less than their best. Do they always make an effort to do everything they can do as well as they can do it? No, people surely don’t do that. Rather, they usually make their best effort to do as much as they think is necessary and to do it as well as they think it needs done. The problem is that we may not agree that they have done enough or done it as well as we needed it done. Our issue is that we wanted more or better. From our perspective, the other person could have and should have done more or done better. It seems to us that we haven’t gotten his or her best effort. We have to deal with a shirker, with someone who is lazy or is sloppy and half does things. Of course we always give everything we do our best effort, always do things correctly and completely – or do we? People seldom intend to offend us or to cause us to feel resentful or indignant. It’s hard to know how to respond to someone who says or does something that we find insulting or offensive. We are immediately taken aback and even quicker to conclude that the person provoking our reaction has a bad attitude and probably enjoys putting us down or simply ignoring us. I don’t know about you but I’ve occasionally not related to people in authority with the degree of respect and deference that they felt entitled to. Usually after the fact, I learned that they were offended or indignant. They definitely assumed that I had intentionally insulted them or disregarded their authority. People seldom intend to upset us or make us unhappy. What upsets us or makes us unhappy varies a lot from person to person and from time to time. It’s hard for me to predict what causes you to tilt and vice versa. The point is that when we do get upset or unhappy, we frequently attribute our reaction to someone else and his or her actions or inaction, his or her intentions or thoughtlessness. You are upset or unhappy and it’s my fault, you think. I either knew or should have known that you would be upset or unhappy but Either didn’t care or at least didn’t care enough to behave differently. People seldom intend to frighten or alarm us. There are several ways people frighten or alarm us on purpose. Think of haunted houses at Halloween, roller coasters, scary movies and adolescent pranks. There are other times when we are frightened or alarmed that are not so acceptable. The TV weather person emphasizes the worst possible weather event to keep us watching the weather channel and its commercials. The doctor’s office leaves a cryptic message not making it clear just how bad our condition is or isn’t. Telephone scams try to frighten us in a multitude of ways so we will give them money to prevent whatever bad outcome they are pitching today. Unfortunately, we also frighten and alarm each other through what we do or at times don’t say or do. Our behavior can and does frighten or alarm other people when there is no real danger or risk. Since this affect can be intentional or inadvertent, it’s open to interpretation. Attributing intention or indifference to someone else may be no more than a product of human nature, but we all do it at times. People seldom intend to be late. As best I can tell, the importance of being on time and how much flexibili...