one of the most important ways to calmdown is the power to hold on. even in challenging situations to a distinction between what someone does and what they meant to do. in law, the difference is enshrined in thecontrasting concepts of murder and manslaughter. the result may be the same: the body isinert in a pool of blood. but we collectively feel it makes a hugedifference what the perpetrators intentions were.motives are crucial, but unfortunately we're seldom very goodat perceiving what motives happened to
be involved in the incidents thatfrustrate us. we're easily and wildly mistaken. we see intention where there wasnone and escalate and confront when no strenuous or agitated responses are infact warranted. part of the reason why we jump soreadily to dark inclusions and see plots to insult and harm us is a ratherpoignant psychological phenomenon: self-hatred. the less we like ourselves, the more weappear in our own eyes as really rather plausible targets for mockery and harm. why would a drill have started upoutside just as we were settling down to
work? why are the email not arrive even thoughwe'll have to be in a meeting very soon? why would the phone operator be takingso long to find our details? because there is, logically enough, a plot againstus. because we are appropriate targets for these kinds of things. because we're the sort of people against whom disruptive drilling is legitimately likely to bedirected. it's what we deserve. when we carry abackground excess of self-disgust around with us operating just below the radar ofconscious awareness. we'll constantly seek confirmation from the wider world thatwe really are the worthless people we
take ourselves to be. the expectation isalmost always set in childhood where someone close to us is likely to haveleft us feeling dirty and culpable. and as a result we now travel throughsociety assuming the worst. not because it's necessarily true orpleasant to do so, but because it feels familiar. and because as the prisoners of pastpatterns we haven't yet understood. we would be so much calmer around adults, if we could resort to some of theunflustered poised we naturally use around children. small children sometimesbehave in really maddening ways. they
scream at the person who's looking afterthem, angry push away a bowl of animal pastor, throw away something you've justfetched for them. but we rarely feel personally agitated or wounded by theirbehavior. and the reason is that we don't assign a negative motive or meanintention to a small person. we reach around for the most benevolentinterpretations. we probably think that they're just abit tired, or their gums are sore, or they're upset by the arrival of ayounger sibling. we've got a large repertoire ofalternative explanations ready in our heads. and none of these lead us to panicor get terribly agitated.
this is the reverse of what tends tohappen around adults. here we imagine that people have deliberately got us in their sights. if someone edges in front of us in theairport queue it's natural to suppose that they've sized this up and of reason thatthey can safely take advantage of us. they probably relish the thought ofcausing us a little distress. but if we employ the infant model ofinterpretation our first assumptions would be verydifferent. we think that maybe they didn't sleep well that night, have a soreknee, or have been upset by their lover. the french philosopher inmilo gustachtie, known as ella, was set to be the
finest teacher in france in the firsthalf of the 20th century. and he developed a formula for calming himself and his pupils down in the face of irritating people. never say that peopleare evil. he wrote. you just need to look for thepin. what he meant was: look for the source of the agony that drives a person to behave in appalling ways. the calming thought isto imagine that they're suffering off stage in some area we can't see. to be mature is to learn toimagine this zone of pain in spite of the lack of much available evidence. theymay not look as if they were mad and by
an inner psychological element. they may seem chirpy and full ofthemselves, but the pin simply must be there or they would not be causing usharm. when others maden us we need to imagine the turmoil,disappointment, worry, and sadness beneath an aggressive surface. we need to aim compassion in anunexpected place at those who annoy us most. we must do that very strange thing: movefrom anger to pity.