“Relax”, “calm down”, “are you okay?” and other merciless jargon
How to not beat a dead horse with your words.
It’s a new day. It’s raining outside. You overslept for 5 minutes. You step outside, into a pot-hole. You picked today to wear your new shoes. You rummage your backpack for an umbrella. You realize you needed those 5 minutes to sift through your room for said umbrella. Your blue shirt now turns to grey. You step into work late for the first time in months. However, the entire office formed a consensus on showing up on time, today. They are taking a team photograph right now. You make your way to and sit down at your desk. The co-worker that never talks to you, turns to you. — “Are you okay?”
I recently moved to a new country and I had the blessing of getting to experience what might be a more first-world social environment. Over the last few months, I found myself diving headfirst into the bizarre deep end of how unintrusive yet straightforward people were here. These are very normal, ideal human characteristics. However, no longer anticipating ulterior motives or begrudging personalities was quite the culture shock to me — I had to allow myself to now lower a guard I was putting up for decades.
Not only is it rare for people to stick their nose in where it doesn’t belong, but indifference is a prevalent tone in every conversation. So by asking one to “relax”, or “calm down”, you are by no means helping them feel better, but you are in fact claiming to have assessed the situation well enough, have gathered enough information (or know the other person so well) to assume that the person can miraculously resolve their dilemma at will. And then tell them to do so. In which case, why didn’t they already? Not only have you done nothing to help, but you have also successfully invited yourself into someone else’s private space, without permission.
Ironically, the realization of how ridiculous these responses are came to me from being on the dealing end of this damage when I would find myself throwing daggers of “take it easy,” when both ends of the conversation knew this was anything but. So why was I saying that to them? What did I really mean by that? Am I claiming that I am the salvation to this difficult situation and my antidote of choice is simply saying that… it is not, difficult?
Needless to say, it took me several of these awkward confrontations to realize that the silent response was out of sheer politeness. I’m a stranger telling you what to do, while your life is falling apart. It took me several more of these (and some verbal backlash) for it to finally sink in that these responses can even be insensitive or offensive.
To put this bluntly, 100% of these scenarios would require nothing more than for you to lend a listening ear rather than verbal or physical intervention. That being said, your physical or virtual presence will awkwardly demand you bring some tangible value to the situation… Or why on earth are you even there? So what do you do/say then? It starts with the realization that if ever you feel the urge to utter the word “chill”, there is in fact, a problem you very lazily just attempted to solve. Identify that problem, evaluate and focus on the problem solution and then establish the right timing to act on it. Do this while keeping in mind that you have just one chance to not regret what you are about to do or say. Think twice, thrice, a quintillion times about how you choose to use words.
Focus on the solution and finding one, rather than on cushioning the problem
Scenario 1
Friend: I failed that assignment, I hate myself
You: Re**x, you’ll be fine
Friend: I made stupid, disappointing mistakes
You: C**m d*wn, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad. Even if it was, let’s go nowhere by talking about how bad it was and you beating yourself up, digressing into a vicious iterative cycle of pain and reopening those wounds further.
Scenario 2
Friend: I failed that assignment, I hate myself
You(after reading this article): Yes you did, but did you know that you can try again, cultivating your knowledge of your errors into a now statistically proven higher chance at passing?
Friend: Oh, wow, I feel like this is actually going somewhere!
Timing is key
In your complete silence, there is now even more pressure on you to listen twice as hard and be attentive to gestures that need a response. Depending on the person’s monologue, being always agreeable may actually not be their desired response and can cause significant unrest.
As for a verbal response, if you can’t find the right time to say what you need to say, that’s okay. Be patient. While nodding and shaking your head as required. Moment after moment will pass and the fear of coming off as weak and timid in all your speechlessness will creep in, but that’s okay. As long as you have the problem solution in mind, focus that idea/thought inwards and let that drive you in holding the conversation through your body gesture and facial expressions. Be wary of instances where you may be passively provoked to say something when it may not be time to. Dodge these bullets with “I’ll let you finish and then I’ll come in” or “I don’t want to cut you off just yet”.
It’s not the way you said it, it’s what you said.
While you’re doing all of the above, you have to consciously integrate the right language to avoid misinterpretation or misunderstanding while the atmosphere is engulfed in a whirlwind of emotions. Use grammarly… Is what I would have said if you could use natural language processing algorithms in real-time, within the confines of your brain. Assuming these algorithms are able to factor in the many variables in emotional intelligence. The goal is to pick the right vocabulary from the plethora that already exists in the right combinations and permutations to construct the most articulate sentence response to a human who is overwhelmed with a surge of anxiety, anger or worse, hunger. This is quite the superhuman feat and the biggest takeaway is that you really really ought to think this one out.
As the words roller-coaster their way from your brain to your lips, you will feel like you are no longer native to your native language. Yes let’s add that to your mid-life crisis. You’re welcome. Knowing all of this is a necessary part of this noble endeavor of selfless consolation you willingly or unwillingly took part in.
To summarize, your objective will be to run this problem-solving and execution process in your mind, all while maintaining eye contact and establishing an appropriate rhythm of head nods or shakes with the person. A sweet-spot between day-dreaming and psychotic.
To further stress on the importance of thinking and re-thinking, bare in mind to constantly play devil’s advocate with yourself. Question the solution you just arrived at. Question your current emotions. Your existence. Your dog’s toilet habits. Question everything till you accept that you didn’t know what to do at first, but now you do(yay). Then do it.
“And I knew exactly what to do. But in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do.” — Michael Scott, The Office: Season 5, “Stress Relief”
This article is an ode to my own personal growth this past year. If it has helped accelerate yours or has resonated with you in some way, please do share it across! I’d also like to learn from your own experiences and other trigger words in the same arena that can do more harm than good.
