E=WELL, EVERYTHING ...The Lost Prudence

Cheerio Christian and Faith

So far we’ve looked at one aspect of mental energy and we’ve looked at an overarching principle that relates to our complete energy system. This week I want to hit on a critical aptitude that relates to our emotional energy: being offended.

I’m watching all around me … and have been for years … and seeing how easily people get offended. Announcing, “I’m offended,” is basically telling the world that you can’t control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you. 

Recently, your Mom ran across the following on FB. It shows the unrealistic and unreasonable expectations that people can have when they are on vacation. These are actual complaints received by Thomas Cook Vacations. As you might have imagined, I have been unable to resist the temptation to make comments.

1. "They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax."
Comment: Did your husband tell you that he was distracted or were you just jealous of what YOU saw?

2. "On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food."
Comment: Really? Curry in Indian restaurants. Who knew that all Indian restaurants now serve British cuisine.

3. "We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish."
Comment: I have had a similar problem in St. John’s Nfld … actually, if the cabbies there spoke Spanish I might have had a better chance.

4. "We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price."
Comment: Wow, what decent waterpark doesn’t have every known size and design of swimsuit waiting for lame customers like you?

5. "The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room."
Comment: I know right. I’ve found the same thing whenever I’ve gone to the beach. I can give you a list of beaches that are not sandy at all (which, coincidentally, they also have no people because most people are really lame and are actually looking for beaches with sand. Sheesh … go figure).

6. "We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow."
Comment: How unlucky of you to find the very spot where they let the dogs pee. I bet it was whiter 100 metres in either direction.

7. "It's lazy of the local shopkeepers in Puerto Vallarta to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during 'siesta' time -- this should be banned."
Comment: Thank you for your comment. We’ll have one of our agents call you at 3am (hopefully, you aren’t one of those lazy foreigners who only sleeps at night)

8. "No-one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared."
Comment: Your children are normal. You, however, are a testament that genetic weakness can rise above natural selection since you have reproduced. Good job!

9. "Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers."
Comment: Our deepest apologies. We would have refunded you your entire $3000 for the suite and $4000 for your family’s airfare, however, we have spent it on egg-slicers for all the suites in all of our resorts worldwide. FYI - the egg-slicers will arrive the day after you leave (whenever that is).

10. "I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts."
Comment: It’s funny you mentioned that because the previous rendition of our brochure grew to in excess of 10,000 pages because we had meticulously listed every single imaginable thing that the local stores did not carry. When I came on strength as the new manager I suggested that we reduce the brochure to bare essentials so as to not be cost-prohibitive, and instead, offload the responsibility of managing expectations to our clients and provide a simple brochure to all local store owners to warn them about ridiculous clients.

11. "The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun."
Comment: Our apology. It appears that you were the only one who did not read the introductory material that we sent you, which reads: “Due to the uneven and bumpy road conditions enroute to your resort, you will be unable to read your guide book. We strongly urge you to read it during your flight, rather than sleeping … you can sleep during the bus ride which, because of the uneven and bumpy road conditions, should rock you gently asleep so that you will arrive full refreshed at the resort."

12. "It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair."
Comment: Actually, we’ve had similar complaints from the Americans who vacation in the Isle of Mann. We have a list of Americans who are prepared to house-swap … but stick to those in Florida because if you pick the ones in Alaska you are pretty much limited to vacationing in Canada’s Yukon territories or northern Russia.

13. "I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends' three-bedroom and ours was significantly smaller."
Comment: We’ll send a couple of our stewards up with a room-stretcher at 3am, the time when we do all room-stretching. Of course, you will want to be out of your room at that time because it can be a chaotic process.

14. "The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the resort.' We're trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service."
Comment: With that comment you must truly be trained hairdressers. We have an opening if you need a job.

15. "When we were in Spain, there were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners."
Comment: That’s very strange indeed. We were not aware that any of our foreigners spoke Spanish.

16. "We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning."
Comment: Actually, there is A/C outside, but only at night.

17. "It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel."
Comment: Good point. And to be truly comprehensive, we should also advise everyone of lame guests who have ridiculous and unrealistic expectations.

18. "I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes."
Comment: We apologize. We don’t like making promises that are beyond our control to keep. We used to advertise whale-watching too but after a sufficient number of no-shows, we had to stop making that promise. We are pleased that you had a personal encounter with one of our indigenous fauna. (you might find it helpful to know that the contact information for the CDC can be found in your suite).

19. "My fiancée and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked."
Comment: Our sincere apologies. How inconsiderate of us to force you to have sex. We are prepared to contact the local social services office in your hometown so that you can be relieved of the burden of caring for a child that you simply did not want. On second thought, we won’t wait for your permission … we need to have the child removed from your house because the two of you are too stupid to realize how ridiculous your e-mail is. We have also paid for a full-page advertisement in your local newspaper, showing your pictures and warning people that you two are easily offended and might become dangerous.

OK, I just had to have fun with that one.

Here’s the point. Managing expectations is an incredibly important habit that we need to develop. I will deal with this more fully in October. For today, I simply want to zoom in to one aspect of this … and that is the ease at which we take offence. The bottom line is that making yourself offence-proof is a very mature practice. Solomon wrote it this way in Proverbs 19:11:

A person's wisdom yields patience; it is to one's glory to overlook an offense.

One translation says, “it is prudent for a wise person to overlook an offence.”

I was pleased a number of years ago to learn that the Canadian Mental Health Association was a leader in the field of positive psychology … the paradigm that teaches that mental health should not be defined by negative examples (poor mental health) but by what a healthy mind looks like and what mentally healthy people do. One of the healthy practices that they highlight is the practice of forgiveness. It is clear to me (and confirmed by both life experiences, Scripture, and your Mom’s counsellor training) that it is almost impossible to get even close to emotional/mental health if we are harbouring resentment or unforgiveness in our heart. Almost impossible. The CMHA has recognized this. Forgiving someone for something they said or did or didn’t say or didn’t do is a very healthy mental habit. 

We don't forgive someone for their sake ... we forgive them for our own.

But I want to go you one better. How about not taking offence in the first place? If you can get yourself to the point where you don’t even take offence in the first place, then there will be nothing for which you need to extend forgiveness.

Just a technical point here. Forgiveness is not the same as pardoning someone. To pardon someone means to not (or no longer) hold them accountable by making them pay consequences. A pardon means that the debt has been wiped clean … especially at a societal level. Forgiveness is different. Forgiveness is about wiping the slate clean in our heart. Regardless of whether the person who offended us still has to suffer consequences (do the crime – do the time), we can choose to eliminate the emotional debt inside of us as if it had never happened.

Overlooking an offence is to never write anything on the heart-slate in the first place. This is an incredibly healthy emotional practice and will change your life when you become skilled at it. Without the inner burden of offences that build up, we are emotionally FREE … and have an incredible amount of emotional energy that can be directed towards the things that are actually important to us.

I once heard bitterness put this way … “bitterness is like drinking poison in the hopes that it will kill your enemy.”  That would be stupid. Harbouring bitterness is stupid and self-defeating (and self-destructive).  When you feel offended by someone, please remember that at that moment, you have just entered the road to stupid. Your Mom and I didn’t raise no dummies ... don't go down that road.

It is prudent for a wise person to overlook an offence. Be prudent.

In July we’ll talk about change.

I love you both.

Dad