Here’s a good idea for a New Year’s resolution.
Don’t argue with people who don’t listen.
Not literally.
Not figuratively.
Not no way. Not no how.
Let me tell you how I came upon this bit of wisdom. Mind you, I haven’t learned it completely myself. From time to time I still find myself in a futile conversation with someone who will not hear what I have to say.
About 25 years ago, far away in a beautiful little city called Temple, Texas, I decided I wanted to participate in community theater. The trouble was, in a town with the largest hospital in Central Texas, all the best roles always went to the doctors and the lawyers who donated the most money to keep the theater doors open. So a group of earnest though poor folks including me started our own little theater and put on plays at the local Ramada Inn. With limited expenses, a play that drew 45 to 50 people a performance was considered a success.
All went well until one spring when we needed someone to volunteer to direct the next production. The local high school drama teacher said she would do it—even though she was directing the students in Hello Dolly! at the same time—if she could have the lead in the next play 6 Rms Rv Vu. It fell to me to find a director for that show. I could not find anyone except the junior college drama instructor who was interested only if rehearsals began after June first when his semester ended. That seemed reasonable until the high school teacher announced the rehearsals had to begin the middle of May because of her summer schedule.
So there I was in a pickle. If I pleased the high school teacher there was no director. And, I felt, I would look foolish to the junior college instructor. If I accommodated the junior college guy I’d break the original deal and make the high school teacher mad.
Now, I know all this sounds petty and boring but I’m getting to the meat of the matter right now. The high school drama teacher was married to this building contractor who looked like the Norse god Thor, only stronger. This guy could lift two 8×4 ¾-inch plywood boards over his head and not even breathe hard. When his wife got mad, he got mad.
“How dare you treat Hortense (not her real name, but you could guess that) like that? After all she’s done for this group? And you were over at our house and didn’t even tell us!”
That’s true. I didn’t tell them when I had a chance because I was scared to death of their reaction. I had her best friend tell her. She didn’t speak to her friend for at least a year.
“There you sat in my house and drank all my wine!”
Yes, I did. He offered it and I drank it. What a baseborn ingrate I was.
“We’ve got to learn to work together in this group! How dare you treat Hortense like this! You should have seen the tears going down her cheeks!”
No matter how hard I tried to explain the situation to him I failed. He was too busy shouting at me to take time to listen to my explanation, no matter how wimpy it sounded.
Every time he saw me after that for the next six months or so he would lecture me on the importance of teamwork and cooperation. By that time I had learned to smile and nod. I got very good at smiling and nodding. But the damage was done. Half of the theater group thought I was terrible for double crossing Hortense. The other half thought Hortense and her husband were jerks. So we disbanded. Thankfully, the high school teacher shortly thereafter took a job at a junior college across the state and in a few years my family and I moved to Florida.
The point of this is that sometimes there are two groups of people, those who have to make hard decisions that they know will please no one and those who get mad. They are too busy exploding to be confused with the facts. It doesn’t have to be a community theater. It can be a church. It can be a business. It can be government, at all levels.
It always happens and will continue to happen. Most people who have actual problems with their ears get a hearing aid. The socially deaf don’t think they do anything wrong. The rest of us just have to accept this fact of life and practice our smiling and nodding.
One last thing, if you don’t like this commentary, or for that matter, anything else I’ve written, keep it to yourself. I’m getting a little hard of hearing myself.