My Beef With An Elderly Lady

I’m not proud to say this, but I can be a nasty person on the road.

There’s this one time where I’m going 40 mph, which is right at the speed limit. All of a sudden, I see these white lights flash behind me. And then I hear two honks.

*BEEP BEEP*

I look into the rearview mirror, and it’s an elderly lady. She has this really intense scowl and is very grumpy. I guess she is in a rush because she begins to tailgate me.

Normally, I try my best to get out of these types of situations. My friends tell me I’m a nice guy and I very much like to avoid conflict. I’m definitely not one to start beef with others, especially elderly people.

But the situation is too perfect.

It’s a one-lane street, and it’s impossible for her to switch lanes and pass me. She is pretty much stuck there behind me.

So I slow down.

Now don’t worry.

I don’t do anything dangerous like slam the brakes or anything. I simply take my foot off the gas pedal and I let the car gradually go down to around 35 mph. As she continues to honk and tailgate me, I continue to let the car’s speed go down.

Soon after, we are both at 30 mph.

We maintain this speed for at least 5 minutes until another lane finally opens up. Naturally, just like anyone else would, she drives past me angrily and gives me the middle finger.

Now like I said.

I’m not proud of this moment.

Growing up, I was taught to respect my elders. Not just that — I was taught to help them whenever I could. In college, I planned a community service event where my friends and I volunteered at a senior center. We laughed and had amazing conversations with the residents there. It was such a good time.

But for some reason, a different side of me took over in the driving incident. It was an evil side. When the elderly lady finally zoomed past me with her intense rage…

I loved every second of it.

Why did I do that? How does someone who was taught to respect elderly people his whole life all of a sudden get enjoyment out of bullying one of them?

Well to answer that, you really have to deconstruct the psychology behind it.

But first, let me tell you a story.

It was the day after July 4. I manage a hotel, and there was a group of 15 rooms that was expected to arrive.

I found out that the group never showed up.

This freaked me out because July 4 was the hotel’s busiest time of the year. With demand so strong, those 15 rooms could have been sold to guests that would have paid twice the rate we usually offered. And they’d be happy to pay for that price.

Instead, 15 of the hotel’s rooms were left untouched on the most profitable night of the year.

When I got news of the group’s no-show, I delayed my weekend plans and rushed to the hotel to quickly investigate.

I wanted to find out two things –

1) Why didn’t the group show up?

2) Could we still charge them for the no-show?

I found out what happened.

The group had actually sent an email 3 months earlier (in April) notifying the hotel that they couldn’t make it. The cancellation was 100% valid, and they did nothing.

It was the hotel’s fault.

As I investigated further, I found out it was my back office clerk that made the mistake. He missed the cancellation email and didn’t process it. This missed procedure that could have been done in 90 seconds resulted in a $2,000 loss.

$2,000 is a fully loaded Macbook Pro with all the fancy features and specs! It’s 200 chipotle meals… with guacamole.

I was fuming.

In that moment, my mind began to slip down the rabbit hole of negativity, and the ensuing anger began to consume me. It stirred in me a desire for justice. At that moment, I decided that I was going to give this wrongdoer what he deserved.

The next day, I went to Home Depot and bought a chainsaw.

Just kidding. I went on a run and I was pretty much over it after that.

Now I put these stories together because I wanted to bring you two perspectives. In the driving story, I was the one that “wronged,” and in the hotel story, I was the one that “got wronged.”

The obvious lesson here is that the anger doesn’t solve anything. And you’re smart enough to know this. We learned this in elementary school. There’s that idiom that is already ingrained in our heads, “don’t cry over spilled milk.”

But here’s a less obvious insight that I picked up from Tony Robbins.

A person’s state of mind can be changed in an instant.

The moment I noticed the angry scowl on the grumpy lady’s face, I sensed that I was getting attacked and I immediately fought back. And it happened before my mind could even fully process the moment.

In a matter of seconds, my negative emotions took full control of the wheel.

Tony Robbins says the same thing can happen in reverse.

He says we also have the ability to instantly snap out of a negative state of mind. We can essentially force ourselves to be in a better mood.

I don’t know if I agree with him completely on this. Maybe I just haven’t practiced enough of it, but it’s hard to see myself instantly go from being angry to happy in 5 seconds. Sounds a little bit “woo-woo” to me.

But there is something Tony Robbins mentions about this that I think is very helpful. He says that the quickest way to snap out of a negative state is to make a drastic physical change to our bodies.

This is actually really solid advice.

It could be a simple change in your posture. You can hit the gym. Maybe you can… you know… get help from someone else.

For me, it was going on that run.

It helped my mind shift away from the anger and bitterness, and instead become clearer on the situation. I put my focus the solution — to figure out how to move forward and make sure the mistake never happened again.

And it never did.