If I am at the grocery store, and the cashier is being unfriendly to me, my husband will often turn to me and give me a specific look. This look has become shorthand for one of his wild theories and it instantly puts me at ease. Whenever someone is behaving in a way that frustrates him, my husband imagines some sort of ridiculous reason for them to behave this way. Remember the Sandra Bullock movie Speed? The premise is that a madman has rigged a city bus so that it will explode if it is driven below a certain speed. While it looks to the outside observer like Sandra is driving recklessly, she’s actually trying to save the lives of everyone onboard. My husband may later suggest, “It’s so sad that someone planted a bomb on that poor lady that will explode if she smiles.” Or if we are driving and someone cuts me off or speeds around me, he may suggest this person has to get his pet duck to the emergency veterinary clinic. While I am logically aware that these theories are unlikely to be accurate, the ridiculous imagery has a tendency to knock me out of my negative mindset.
This trick does require a willingness to reject the satisfaction we get from imagining the worst in others. Sometimes, we just want to give in to that feeling of being hateful towards the world around us. However, if you know this is an unpleasant and ineffective state of mind for you, give this a shot. Next time you sense that you are becoming agitated with someone, try to imagine the most ridiculous scenario possible to explain their behavior. While this does nothing to change the nature of the situation, it does inject a new emotion (amusement, humor, empathy) into it, which may be just what you need to re-focus on being as effective as you can be.