Anger VS Empathy

Today at work I was so pissed off by one particular person who shall not be named. I do not want to give her a name or create a name for her. It does not really matter now because I have tamed my anger and turned it  into something else. I have turned my anger to empathy. I was debating between compassion and empathy and from what I have read, I chose to use empathy because that was what I did. I tried to put into my mind, forced my brain to believe what I told it to believe. This particular person did not only ruined this particular beautiful day of mine, it started a while back but I always shrugged it off giving her the benefit of the doubt. I told my brain that she just might be under the weather or maybe it was really my fault that was why she was rude to me. But then, it became a regular stint. It was like her nature, to be rude. To speak like a boss even when she was so far from one. I told myself that if her attitude continues, I have to speak up for myself.

I replayed situations where she was rude and imagined things I could have said. I was trying to rehearse for the big day. The big day where I can finally be angry and let it all out. So I knew she was coming in today, and just seeing her name makes me hate the day already. But she was only one person so I did not let it bother me. In fact, I believed and prayed that today will be a great day and she can't say anything to offend me. But then it came, she started with the notes I left for her, she was asking RUDELY who left it. She asked me if it was I who left it for her, I said yes. She said that next time I should put my initials in them. I said OKAY. She said I can't be right with my notes because she always does her job so she was blaming me for wasting her time. But I was not wrong, they checked it and turns out, they printed out the wrong files. I cleared my name out and she fell quiet. I felt kind of victorious inside because I was able to calmly handle the situation. But it did not stop from there. She can't stop yapping about how I should do this and that when she clearly does not even understand what was going on in the first place.

At first I was actually finding out all her flaws -- physically. In my mind, I attacked her physical attributes. I destroyed her with my words. Then, I realized that is not the way to do it. I imagined that maybe she feels bad because she can't work yet because of her accident. She has to stop school this semester because she has to tend to all her paper works because of the accident. I calmed myself down. I repeated in my head that she was just in an accident recently, that was enough karma for her already. She was rude by nature, maybe the accident worsens her attitude. I can't change her, I can just understand her. I imagined myself in her shoes and tried so hard to understand until I did it. I was patient the whole time until I left work. I was proud of myself because I decided to understand someone rather than judging them badly.

Today, I learned empathy.


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