I can be carping and critical.
I’ve been that way since childhood, although I’m happy to report I’ve mellowed
considerably. Occasionally, however, I notice the critical mood emerging for no
reason I can see.
It happened the other day
when I set out to do errands. There was
a doctor’s appointment, a stop at the fruit stand for peaches, then on to the super market for calves’ liver, an unhealthy luxury my wife and I occasionally enjoy.
I stopped last at the cleaners.
On the main road I got behind
a driver, and old man, probably younger than I am, going thirty on a fifty MPH road.
I muttered to myself how inconsiderate he was since the road had only two
lanes. "Old geezer," I thought contemptuously.
My wife had asked me to stop at a specific stand that sold peaches, a Georgia peach of which she was fond. When I asked for them, the woman at the stand looked at me with a bored, uncomprehending expression. “Well,” I said, “my wife got a box just the other day.” She looked at me as if I were Martian. “Idiot,” I groused to myself as I left.
I stopped at the parking lot of the super market where a young woman drove into a handicapped parking spot and sprung out from her car leaping like a rabbit. How abusive, I thought, to use the pretense of a handicap to commandeer the best parking at the market.
The doctor’s waiting room was
packed and I sat, fuming, for what seemed hours.
Fortunately the stop at the
cleaners was redemptive. The two clerks are always good-natured and they make me feel good. They’d arranged goofy little plastic figurines
in the store window for decoration that day.
The figurines swayed and
undulated happily. They made no sense
but between the clerks and the figurines, I felt happy. I wasn’t critical any more. During the respite
at the cleaners I cleared my head enough
to be reflective about my previous attitude.
I saw just what I had been
doing: I’d appointed myself the world’s moral policeman, insisting that the
world conform to my high expectations and scolding it with my irritability for
it’s failure to do so. Getting the world in line is a huge responsibility for
anyone. I wondered though what would I do if the world suddenly conformed to my
expectations.
Sure, maybe people would
drive the speed limit, or not abuse handicapped parking places or would treat
customers with a modicum of respect and doctors would schedule better. The down
side is that all these people would be
be just like me: carping and critical in their rectitude. Even when you’re in the right, being carping
and critical is a joyless exercise. You get your way and still remain
miserable.
This insight pleased me. My challenge
was clear; how could I sustain the wisdom and insights of this moment. Great
insights, like mountaintop experiences are typically short lived. They require conscious
effort to keep alive.
I’d like to suggest to any of
my readers on the Shore today that if you suffer from a carping and critical
attitude, and you’re miserable with it, have someone take you to the cleaners. It’ll make your day.
