- Listening to: “Ghost” by Jeff Satur
- Reading: The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly
Do you ever feel irked by something someone said to you? It throws you off so you don’t know what to say. After their words have steeped in your mind for a few hours, you finally come up with a biting response. But by then, it’s too late and you’re feeling petty for having been bothered for this long. So then it sits in your mind as you consider writing a bad Yelp review, complaining to a friend, or perhaps mulling it over in a public blog post.
Here are some of the things I found myself lingering on:
A call to the optometrist
Me: “Hello, I saw Dr. ____ last month for a contact lens fitting. Could I please get my prescription?”
Receptionist: “You were supposed to call to confirm the fit.”
Me (thinking): Girl, we are on the phone right now.
Me (out loud): “Oh right. Yes, they fit great. Can I please have my prescription?”
Nurse check-in
Nurse: “Has anyone in your family had [insert name of unfamiliar eye disease]?”
Me: “What is that exactly?”
Nurse: “If someone had it, you would know.”
Me: “…”
Response that I came up with hours later: “Well, I don’t know. Maybe my father had it, but I haven’t seen him in over twenty years.”
(I’ve been visiting eye doctors recently because I’m quite nearsighted, have retinal latticing, and have a friend who just had her retina re-attached.)
It feels kind of awful, honestly, to be 31 and still be so bothered by what people say.
When this feeling settles in, a phrase comes to mind: “Water off a duck’s back.”
I first heard this in RuPaul’s Drag Race. If you’ve watched it, you might recognize “Water off a duck’s back” as Jinkx Monsoon’s signature mantra.
It’s a good reminder to not let words burrow themselves into our minds. Additionally, I love the imagery of having a coat of waxy feathers that wards off all those icky words and subsequent thoughts.
Kill them with kindness
There’s no doubt that I spend too much time and energy overthinking these interactions. But then I also start wondering, “Am I a bad person for wishing them ill, wishing I’d snapped back in that moment?”
In reflecting, I remind myself to have more grace for others and to remember these things:
- Everyone communicates differently. As an Asian female child of immigrants, I think I’ve been socialized to bend over backwards, defer to others, be humble, never make others feel uncomfortable, etc. But, that doesn’t mean everyone should be this way, nor should we expect people to act this way, even if they are in customer-facing roles.
- We never know what someone else is going through. Maybe they got into a car accident or someone they love is in the hospital. Or maybe they’re wondering if they’ll be stuck in their low-paying, joyless 9-5 job with no broader horizons in sight (most of us can relate). It’s similar to what they say about the jobs that we get rejected from: “Often times, it’s not you—it’s them. There could be something going on behind the scenes that has nothing to do with whether you are qualified for the job or not.” Therefore:
- We only ever see what is presented to us, but it’s rarely the full story. This one interaction will certainly make an impression on you, but it’s not representative of the whole person and their situation. And in this way, your reaction (sometimes lack of reaction) doesn’t have to represent you either.
Water off a duck’s back
Jinkx Monsoon clarifies what she means when she says her infamous quote here. It’s actually a multi-step process:
- Take it in.
- Feel your feelings.
- Say your piece.
- Let the rest be “water off a duck’s back.”
I ended up following up with the optometrist’s office because I still hadn’t gotten my prescription from them. I thought about inserting a bit of snarkiness: “I called to confirm just as you instructed.” But instead, I ended up letting them know that “the person I spoke with earlier this week was very helpful” and could they please email me my prescription? I finally got it, and I think I managed to be kind. (They’ll probably never know this whole mental ordeal I went through!)
In the end, other people’s words don’t deserve to live rent-free in your head.
I think I shall choose kindness over spite for now, let these things roll off like “water off a duck’s back”, and fill my head with lovelier things.
Leave a Reply