Читать книгу The Art of Waging Peace - Paul K. Chappell - Страница 17

During the summer of 2010 I visited my friend Brett in Alabama. We met in high school, but became better friends after I graduated from West Point. On the first day of my visit, he and his friends wanted to go out drinking that evening. Although I don’t drink alcohol, I decided to be social and join them. It was a relaxing and uneventful evening, until they decided to go to a Waffle House at 2:00 a.m.

We were sitting at a table, waiting to order our food. I was probably the only customer in the restaurant who had not consumed alcohol that evening. In the corner, a man who had just received his food was yelling at a waitress because his fork was dirty. He was drunk, and when she did not have a clean fork ready for him immediately, he stood up and walked toward my table. Seeing that I was still holding the menu and had not yet ordered, he took my fork. Another waitress saw what happened and quickly replaced the fork he took from me.

Brett’s friend John was sitting next to me. Angered by the disrespectful behavior of the person who took my fork, he said, “That guy took your fork! Are you going to put up with that?”

I replied, “No harm was done. Now he has a fork. I have a fork. Everybody has forks.”

The more John thought about it, the angrier he got. “You can’t let him get away with taking your fork. I don’t care if he sat down at a table with a dirty fork. It still doesn’t give him a right to take something from you.”

I said, “You have a point, and if he wasn’t drunk I would consider confronting him about taking my fork. But it’s difficult to reason with people when they’re that drunk. People also make bad decisions when they’re drunk, so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’s nicer when he’s sober. Also, it’s not like he took my wallet. Now everybody has forks and everything is fine.”

The more John thought about the way I had been disrespected, the angrier he got. As I looked at his body language, I could tell his temper was boiling. “I appreciate you wanting to defend my honor,” I said jokingly, “But it’s not worth getting in a fight over. Let’s not worry about it.”

But after seething with anger for several minutes, he finally said, “I’m not going to take this.” Enraged, he walked over to the guy who took my fork and yelled, “He’s a veteran! You can’t take his fork!”

John pointed a hostile finger in the guy’s face, who looked up from his food and began yelling back. The situation was quickly escalating toward a fight, and because I wasn’t drunk I was able to look at the growing chaos with a clear head. First of all, the guy who took my fork was physically massive. He had a friend sitting next to him with a big chain around his neck. They had two other friends with them who were about six foot four, muscular, and wearing cowboy boots, cut-off “daisy-duke” jeans, tank tops, and women’s wigs.

Martial arts training taught me that size does not accurately reflect how tough people are or how well they can fight. Nevertheless, this was not the kind of group I wanted to get in a fight with. Along with the legal risk of being arrested, sued, or imprisoned if someone got seriously injured, was it worth getting hurt or killed over a fork?

I also did not want John to get hurt, and if he were attacked I would have to jump in to help him. So I quickly stood up and tried to deescalate the situation. John yelled louder and louder. The guy who took my fork shouted back and became very aggressive. One of his friends yelled at John, “Shut up and get the fuck out of here!”

John would not back down, so I spoke directly to the guy who took my fork. I said, “We’re not trying to be disrespectful. He’s upset you took my fork, but I just want us to drop it.” By that time a whole bunch of people were shouting and I could barely hear myself talk. I started to feel a little nervous and afraid. That was a good sign, I thought, because it meant I was not feeling fearless and invincible. It meant I had not gone berserk.

My memories of what happened next are vague, perhaps due to the chaos and commotion, but I remember trying to cut through the noise to communicate that no disrespect was intended and this wasn’t worth fighting over. Then I grabbed John by the shoulders and pulled him back as he continued to yell.

Later on the guy with the chain around his neck came up to me and apologized. He said, “My friend is normally a nice guy, and he took your fork because he was drunk and pissed off. I apologize for his behavior, and let me pay for your meal to make up for it.”

The reason I tell this story is because a mini-war was almost started just because people felt disrespected. There was no other reason to fight, because everyone had forks. There was also plenty of food for everyone, and nobody’s personal property was taken. Someone could have gotten seriously injured or killed, simply because people felt disrespected.

Why do martial arts teach us to always respect everyone, including our opponents? The reason is because the majority of human conflict comes from people just feeling disrespected. Being respected is something human beings tend to like a lot. In all of human history, I don’t think anyone has ever seriously said, “I hate it when people respect me! I can’t stand it when people respect me!”

The times in my life when I most wanted to punch someone in the face occurred when I felt disrespected. Take a moment to ponder the times when someone most angered you, and the feeling of being disrespected probably had a lot to do with it. Martial arts philosophy focuses on self-defense, and martial arts taught me if we truly want to protect ourselves and others, the first line of defense is not being skilled at punching and kicking, but being skilled at giving respect.

Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. taught us to love everyone, but to many this seems impossible. This ideal is so high that most people do not even bother trying to attain this lofty goal. It is certainly difficult to love everyone, but a much more attainable goal is learning to respect everyone as human beings. That is a first step we can all strive toward. Not only will respecting everyone as human beings help us wage peace, but respect is the foundation for every genuine act of love, compassion, and kindness. In a television interview I saw many years ago, Jet Li, a famous martial artist, said, “I have the best martial arts self-defense technique. The best martial arts self-defense technique is to smile at people, because if you smile and treat people with respect and kindness, they usually don’t want to fight you. Anyone who gets in a lot of fights has very poor martial arts self-defense” (paraphrased).