Standing at the counter... I overheard a man speaking to my wife saying “welcome to Germany - but don’t stay here long”... consumed by anger, I challenged him angrily and asked him why he felt it was ok for him to say that to her... he replied: I have lived here for forty years... I became even angrier and yelled back (something my wife of 5 years said that it is the first time she has ever seen me that angry) “what gives you the right to say that to my wife? We are not here to .... we pay taxes here... he looked at me half dazed and half confused and gently said: “I meant well”... then walked off calmly and gracefully...
I looked around me and my wife was equally dazed... she had never seen me like this and she was wondering why... whilst i was telling the man off, she had whispered “Its OK”... but i didn’t even pay attention. Then within seconds... a very sharp pain, which felt like continuous sharp bolts of lightening, engulfed my heart... I wanted the earth to swallow me - and wished i had a magic wand to turn back time or erase the past five minutes... the pain continued and is still sharply felt as i write these words...
When I teach Arabic rhetoric, I tell my students that; in order to correctly contextualise a statement, you need to know three things:
- The state of the speaker
- The audience
- The context of speech
I usually emphasise that without knowing any of these three points, more likely than not, one would misunderstand or mis-contextualise the statement. I give numerous examples showing how important it is to really grasp these things before being able to correctly interpret or understand a statement... Alas, I guess it has been a while since I taught Arabic Rhetoric!
And this made me think... how many times are we convinced that we are absolutely right... but our myopic view of a situation blinds us from a complete and more accurate picture.
How many times do we feel that our anger is rightly placed... whereas we are simply acting based on incomplete information, mis-contextualised information or half-knowledge.
After we packed our shopping items, I looked desperately for the fine gentleman to apologise profusely... as i write, a part of me wishes that he can read this and realise how sorry I am for being angry at his gentle and kind words towards my wife... that I didn’t know and didn’t hear the earlier friendly part of his conversation with her.. and had I known, I would have smiled at him and replied with “we’ll try” rather than the angry rhetoric that I responded with..
Life is a collection of moments... and as long as we are breathing, there is an opportunity to learn and grow. I have learnt to make excuses for people even when what I hear from them doesn’t sound right... and never to jump to conclusions without giving people an opportunity to explain themselves... that it is better to be oppressed than to be an oppressor... and that if my paths were to ever cross with that gentleman (and I pray that our paths cross again), I would invite him to my house for a meal and apologise immensely for the discomfort that I put him through...
Life is a short journey... Travel Light... writing this has lightened the burden weighing heavily on my chest... and I hope anyone reading this learns something golden from it.
