Stubbing One's Toes on the Way to High Moral Ground

Yesterday I got another chance to learn a lesson in humility (which persist in coming to me without my asking).

One of the ancillary benefits of buying high-end supplemental health insurance (to ensure coverage for the pricey chemotherapy that suppresses my cancer) is that I get a free membership in an exercise club owned by one of the local hospitals. I go there to rebuild my strength and flexibility after a debilitating winter plagued by respiratory problems. 

That meant 20 laps at a fast walk around the indoor track (a bit more than a mile), followed by 45 minutes in the sauna. (During the ages of 8-16 I spent most summers at a boys camp outside Ely MN, where we took saunas every other night in lieu of showers, and I grew to love the cleansing dry heat.)

As I was changing into sweats in the men's locker room, another man approached me from the side and waited expectantly. As it was a little tight for him to walk by me, I stood up half-dressed and moved back so that he could get by. To my astonishment, he settled into the exact place I had been and blithely started to open the locker above mine. Shaking my head, I walked around the bench to a spot nearby so that I could finish dressing. By way of acknowledgment, he mumbled that he was trying to be respectful of my space.

As I thought about it, he could hardly been have less respectful of my space. He saw me sitting on the bench changing my clothes—the very thing he wanted to do. What in the world gave him the idea that it would be OK to bump me so that he would have a more convenient location and wouldn't have to wait? Wouldn't it have been logical to suppose that I had a locker near his? At least he could have asked, instead of wordlessly standing over me, expecting me to give way. 

I was particularly struck by the contrast of how his imperious behavior was draped in the raiment of sensitivity. In short, it galled me.

I brooded over this interaction as I did laps, reflecting how much we all like to think of ourselves as aware and kind—even if others don't always experience us that way. The fact is, everyone has lapses, where absorption with self clouds our awareness of how our actions are landing with those around us, or we project onto others that they will see a situation the same way we do, without first checking out that bald assumption (and then proceed to act in a way that we intend as sensitive, yet may actually be irritating). Thus, microaggressions abound.

Aetna once did a survey of the people who were found to be at fault in auto accidents leading to an insurance claim, and were amazed to discover that 90 percent rated themselves as above-average drivers. I suspect that the same kind of self-delusion applies to unmindfulness. Almost all of of think we are more commonly the victim of it than the perpetrator.

I was still ruminating on this after completing my circuits of the track. Following a quick rinse in the shower I walked into the sauna and was pleased to find that there were only two others in there.  Sometimes there are six or more enjoying the Finnish bath (at the finish of their workout) and there are no seats on the top bench, where the therapeutic heat is strongest. No sooner had a sat down, however, than one of the men moved quickly to the door to close it all the way. Oops!
While the sauna door is mounted on a spring hinge and closes automatically, it doesn't tend to close all the way and a slight crack can spill a lot of heat. I was so engaged with my inner dialog—about the unmindful man in the locker room—that I was unmindful about entering the sauna. It only took me about 30 minutes to make the same kind of behavioral error that had so outraged me. It was my turn in the penalty box.

In addition to getting yet another chance to learn about mindfulness (in this instance seasoned lightly with the bittersweet taste of irony), I suddenly discovered sympathy for the man in the locker room that I didn't think was in me. Turning my attention to my own foibles, I was able to let go of obsessing about his. 

It occurs to me that life has been incredibly persistent about providing me with opportunities to learn about humility. It's too bad I'm such a slow learner.