So early Sunday morning I was driving behind a bicycle riding Uber Eats guy. As the light turned red, he almost ran the light and nearly hit a middle aged couple who started to cross in front of him. The Uber Eats guy immediately apologised profusely as I watched the whole thing unfold in front of me. The male of the couple started to verbally abuse the Uber Eats guy as they walked across and continued doing so till they reached the other side. The Uber Eats guy continued to apologise while the guy was abusing him. The whole saga only stopped when the light turned green and the Uber Eats guy rode away.
So being the guy who watches the reaction of the other guys when a gorgeous girl walks into the room, some thoughts came to me…
About the couple: What’s that about? They were not hit, in fact, it wasn’t even close. So what was it?
I’m not talking about the initial reaction of anger/surprise, I’m talking about the continuing abuse even when somebody already apologised and continued to apologise.
Is it a sense of self-righteousness? Is it because they were given the permission by the Uber Eats guy to continue so they did? Is it because the guy was with a partner so he was trying to impress her?
About the Uber Eats guy: what was that about? Why the constant apologising almost to the point of grovelling?
Then my thoughts came to the concept of Perceived Power. It was an affluent area and the couple were nicely dressed in their exercise clothes. The Uber Eats guy was young, dishevelled and was doing deliveries at 7am on a very cold Sunday morning.
Since I’m always drawn to the underdog, I thought a lot more about the Uber Eats guy. What would make a person become so docile that he needed the other guy to forgive him so badly?
Then I think about how we all subconsciously allocate power to ourselves according to how we see our place in the hierarchy of the world. The issue with this is .. sometimes, we judge our “place” incorrectly!
What is the problem with this, you say?
Remember when you were attracted to someone but too afraid to approach them? Or when you were in a group meeting and wanted to ask a question but too afraid to ask because you didn't want the group to think that you are lesser than them? With the first example, you might find out later that the person also felt the same way, and with the second example you might find out later that there were others in the group who had the same question but were also too afraid to ask.
So the problem with incorrectly appointing your “place” in society is a loss of opportunities! With the first example, you may have missed the opportunity to get to know that person and with the second example, you may have missed the opportunity to get an answer to your question. With regard to the Uber Eats guy, it’s worse! He opened himself up for abuse from the other person. And if the other person happens to be one who welcomes the opportunity to put down others, then the situation above happens!
A lot of times, how we see the world is rarely factual. It’s based on our belief systems caused by our experiences from the past.
Then combined with our cognitive bias we have an ugly feedback loop. I’ll give you an example of this;
Let's say your belief is “I’m worthless”. Then let's say you did 10 things during this week. 3 you did well, 6 you did how pretty much how everybody else would and 1 you did badly (say, you turned up to a meeting 30 minute late). Guess which one you’ll remember? Exactly! The one where you were late! So you remember only the fact that fits in with your belief that you are worthless. This strengthens your belief that you are worthless. This is a destructive loop! If this is you, try to be more factual in your judgement of yourself. Don’t just remember the facts that match your belief!
I’ll talk about the couple another time.
Have a good week!
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