When you’re in a circle of people (dinner table, around the bar, corner of the function room), and you’re the only one talking, you might be making a fool out of yourself.

Talking too much is never a good idea. No matter how good what you have to say is, other people probably don’t share your enthusiasm. Instead of carrying on, ask leading questions.

When you’re complaining about an inconvenience or a set of circumstances that you’re not too happy with to somebody who isn’t a close friend, you’re probably making a fool out of yourself.

Your house burning down or loosing a limb is not what I’m talking about. Those are tragedies. What I’m talking about is the post office closing 2 minutes before you got there, or not having enough aprons at the kitchen where you’re volunteering. A bystander has much better things to do than listen to you describe how awful it is that the ATM doesn’t work or that the waiter hasn’t cleaned off the table yet. “A close friend” exception is there because, presumably, a) s/he probably knows enough about you to let this one slide and b) s/he will tell you when you’re being a whiner or acting like a spoiled brat.

When you rev your engine and try to do something showy with your car – take a sharp corner, drift through a curve, take somebody off the line – in front of on-lookers or other drivers, there’s a very high chance that you’re making a fool out of yourself.

Speeding tickets are expensive and concrete curbs hurt a lot. Save stunt driving for empty parking lots or race tracks. Seriously.

Whenever you write an angry email, leave a ranting voicemail, or complain vociferously about someone’s words, actions or personality, you’re very likely making a fool out of yourself.

No matter how good you think your intel is, you probably don’t know the whole story. You just don’t. Trust me. When something that seemed like a sure bet, something that you had completely figured out proves to be completely untrue, and the person ‘at fault’ turns out to have been right all along, you will be one red-faced fool.

Say it with me: am I talking too much? Am I acting like a spoiled brat? I better not. I probably don’t know the whole story. Repeat these to yourself when your spider-sense starts tingling, and you might just save yourself some serious embarrassment.

And lastly, in the interest of full disclosure, if you still haven’t guessed, most of these examples are personal ones. Hopefully, having others learn from my mistakes makes up for me being a buffoon oh, so many, many times.

image by FadderUri

All this time, your thoughts are brewing and going through a range of emotions, from feeling misunderstood – “How could s/he say that?  Doesn’t s/he know how busy I am?” – to counter-attacking – “Oh yeah?  Well, we’ll see who’s on time to the meeting next week!  As a matter of fact, maybe I should follow him around and see how many of his meetings he’s late to!”

Think of an instance like that, when you were on a receiving side of a scathing comment.  Think of the author.  Is this person mean-spirited in general?  Does this person harbor any ill will towards you?  Was this person lashing out at you, for whatever reason?  If you can’t answer with a resounding yes to these questions, then it’s quite possible that you took the comment in the wrong way or it sounded a lot worse than it was meant to.

Now, misunderstanding is very much a part of life, and will be there so long as two or more people are interacting with one another.  What I’d like to get at is why the comment was so upsetting to you.  The likelihood is that you felt hurt, misunderstood and maybe even bitter because that comment touched a raw nerve or pointed out a flaw and you became defensive.  We don’t like it when our flaws are pointed out to us.  We’re not happy when a topic that we struggle with is broached, especially if our shortcomings/failures/inconsistencies could be exposed.

Maybe you are taken aback by the comment on your early arrival because you know that you’re late quite often.  Or you feel a little too much sting, when a comment is made about the the noises your car makes because you know you should be taking better care of it.  Or you are inclined to tell your classmates it’s none of their business, when they ask about the latest paper – the one you’ve been dragging your feet on.

So, the next time a friend or a relative unwittingly throws a dart and hits the bullseye, before you get upset or strike back, think about why the dart hurt – maybe there’s something you need to work on?