In an attempt to come up with something to write about this week, I asked one of the lawyers in my firm what made him mad. He immediately told me he didn’t like when he was returning a call from someone and, instead of the normal ring, he had to listen to a song he’d never heard. I told him I agreed, but then I followed up with a few questions.
I asked why that made him mad. He told me the recording was too long, and all he wanted to do was leave a message. I then asked him how he would feel if he found out that the song only played as long as the normal ringing. He said he could live with that if that was true, but he just didn’t believe it. Since I couldn’t prove that the length of the song was no longer than the normal ringing, I had to let him go on being mad about the song. I also tended to agree with him.
This conversation reminded me of how we allow many things we can do nothing about to bother us. Often, when we give those things serious consideration, they’re really not worth the anger we waste on them. Maybe it comes down to a simple process of mind over matter. Maybe the question we should ask ourselves is whether our irritation is making things better. If your reaction is making nothing better and only causing you discomfort, what’s the benefit of responding in that way?
A lot of things in life are hard. A lot of things are worth protesting. Why spend your time on a protest that only falls on deaf ears, or the ears of someone that has less ability to change the problem than you? That is like making your friend smell something that’s objectionable because you smelled it first. Why should you both suffer?
#BLACKFISH
If you have not seen the CNN documentary on killer whales, I suggest you try to find it and watch it. The documentary follows the life of a specific killer whale that’s captured and owned by Sea World. At the center of the story is the fact that the killer whale has killed two people and maimed a couple of more, and how that’s covered up.
The capture of the baby whale highlights the very advanced family relations of the whales and the intelligence that they use in dealing with other. There is a poignant moment where the baby whale is caught among a group of other whales. Once the baby is caught, the other whales are released. The whales do not leave as expected, rather they stay with their heads out of the water in a group calling out in the direction of the baby. It’s quite sad.
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I will probably never take my protest of the way killer whales are treated any farther than this column. I will, however, probably continue to complain about long ring tones. What does that say about me as a person? While that’s an answer that I don’t want to hear, I’m sure I’m not the only one. While there might be comfort in numbers, there’s always room for improvement. That’s true for everyone, especially those of us way up in the CHEAP SEATS!
Bill James is a co-founder of the James Law Firm with offices in Little Rock, Conway and Fayetteville, Arkansas. His primary area of practice is criminal defense. He can be contacted at Bill@JamesFirm.com