Increasing [wait for it] the pause

There's a pause between someone saying something we don't like [example pause] and our reaction. The length of that pause can make or break our ability to keep friends in our life.

I got an email recently from someone I’d consider a good friend. The email was thoughtful and vulnerable. In it, the person detailed how I was not a good friend.

Goddammit.

I responded to them immediately and said that I’d need some time to think about what they’d said. And it’s been a few weeks. And I still don’t know what I’m going to say.

The good news is that I don’t think I would have even gotten an email like this five years ago. Back then, I was knee-deep in unintentionally creating a defensive shield of “don’t tell me things I don’t want to hear.” So, while it’s true that reading the uncomfortable details of this email was excruciating, it was actually a signal that I was doing something right.

I’ve worked hard over the past few years to unwind that defensiveness. To react positively to feedback and criticism. And as I’ve worked on it, more people in my life have felt comfortable to have those difficult-but-nourishing-conversations.

But how did I become so defensive in the first place?

I don’t want to blame everything on Florida, but let’s start there and see where we end up. Florida. Bisexual. Nerd. In that environment, with these characteristics, I quickly realized that being funny was a superpower. A weapon I could wield against the forces of cool kid evil. See, when you’re the class clown… you’re the class clown. It’s this weird protected class amongst children.

Now in order to be a clown, you have to be funny. And in order to be funny, you have to pay really close attention to what’s going on. And as soon as you’ve made a worthwhile observation, you say what you think about it as fast as humanly possible.

So, the rough formula is: observation + perspective + speed = funny.

For example, if a car drove by really fast and it made a lot of noise and you immediately blurt out, “A CAR DROVE BY REALLY FAST AND IT MADE A LOT OF NOISE,” you might get a laugh.

But you’d probably get a bigger laugh if you immediately blurt out, “TINY PENIS, TINY PENIS, WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU? HIDING IN THAT GLOVE BOX, HIDING IN THAT GLOVE BOX, DORMEZ-VOUS, DORMEZ-VOUS.”¹

Actually, the first one might be funnier. But anyway the point is that being funny trains your brain to think and react with extreme speed. Unfortunately, that extreme speed became my mind’s default way of operating: in jokes, in conflict, in life.

And it didn’t always serve.

For example, I used to pride myself on always winning arguments. And then I read a quote: “You can win an argument and still lose.”

“Lose? How? I just shut that conversation DOWN! Facts! Logic! I reacted so quickly! I clearly won the argument! Fuck you,” I’d say. To myself, because the person I just argued with had already walked away, feeling small and dumb.

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Fucking Maya Angelou.

It was truly the combination of these two quotes that kickstarted my introspective journey of increasing the pause between someone saying something [hello, this is me, the pause] and me reacting.

So much of our 20s is taking all of our past trauma and harnessing it into anxious, productive rocket fuel so that we reach terminal velocity, breaking through the atmosphere of childhood, and launching into the outer space of adulthood.

And we do! We build a solid adult_life_v1.jpg.

But soon enough, we realize that the things that got us here aren’t going to get us there. So as we approach and enter into our 30s, we realize it’s time to Marie Kondo² our minds, holding our habits, core values, and philosophies in our hands and asking a simple question: do these bring me joy?

The answer is often, “girl, nah.”

Reacting quickly made me funny. It also made me unapproachable. No matter how you felt, I could always logic my way out of accountability and prove why I didn’t do anything wrong. And I’d do it so fast and furiously that you’d be exhausted even before we begun and the argument would end.

Reacting quickly is a feature and a bug. One that I’ve worked hard to systematically untangle through therapy. Through reading books on communication, listening, and meditation. And, through experimentation and testing in my own life.

And fuck. Turns out, we actually can change. But I too often hear people wave away toxic or unhelpful traits with, “yeah, but that’s just who I am, I guess.”

You guess wrong.

Identity is simply a pattern of energy in our minds. That’s all. It forms to help us stay alive. But we want more than alive. We want to thrive. Being our best selves requires us to actually look at ourselves. And we often skip these introspective oil changes because it’s fucking terrifying. Or worse, we secretly, unconsciously don’t even want to change.

A good question from Jerry Colonna: What benefit do I get from the conditions I say I don’t want?

From the moment we hear someone say something that causes us discomfort—feedback, criticism, or a joke infused with truths we don’t want to admit—there’s a literal path that audio takes through our minds. The naive assumption is that the faster we output a reaction—any reaction at all—the faster we’ll rid ourselves of that discomfort. But we don’t. We prolong the conversation by sinking deeper into discomfort—thrashing around in the quicksand of words we hardly even believe.

But! We’ve said those shitty, unhelpful words. And now it’s time to justify them. Which, thanks our quick wit, we’re great at!

The trick is to pause. Just sit. Sit in discomfort. Unfortunately, it’s fucking impossible.

At first.

It feels impossible because our brains feel discomfort and immediately retrieve a warehouse full of documentation for every other time we’ve ever felt it, and most of those times were when we were kids and discomfort led to situations that caused us embarrassment, shame, and fear of exclusion. Which, when you’re in 4th grade, really fucking matter. Because at that point, we don’t have the social tools and experience to navigate them.

And even though we have the tools now, we suffer from emotional imposer syndrome, starting directly into the mirror and thinking our adult selves are just illusions. So we treat discomfort as adults with the same weight we did as kids.

And that doesn’t serve. Girl, it. doesn’t. serve.

So we learn to pause. And let the words that other person said find not the quickest path through our minds—but the best path through.

A path that allows us a chance to grow. A path that affords freedom from our past. A path where we chose to say something that we can be proud of in the moments, days, and weeks after we respond.

Speaking of which, it’s been a few weeks and that email still needs a response. I’ll probably suggest we talk things out in person over dinner and drinks. I’ll listen, pause, and think deeply on what is actually being said. And I’ll respond with an offer of friendship based on how I feel in that moment, without holding myself to some vague promise of a past self.

Feedback is a gift. And we’re really good at looking this gift right in the mouth, inspecting it for all of its potential flaws, and throwing it out, with the baby, the bathwater, and the entire fucking tub. We could be so lucky to have people in our lives willing to call us out on our shit. Especially when we, deep down, know they’re right. It’s important that we treat these people and these moments with the respect they deserve. It’s important to listen with genuine curiosity, because the very things we don’t want to hear might just be the exact things we need to.

Or we could just win the argument.

1. To the tune of Frère Jacques. And yes, you keep “dormez-vous” because it’s unexpected, which is also funny.

2. Sorry, Zach.