DFW "Address to Kenyon College"

“JJ, how do you stay so calm? How do you not let things piss you off?” A friend asks of my reserved demeanor in reaction to a penalty called on me during a football game.

                “Well, think about the situation and ask yourself, what can you do about it? You know, how can you react? And how will the situation respond to your reaction?” It’s hard, but for the most part, that is how I think. In that specific circumstance, reacting, or complaining about the call would have done absolutely nothing. I have never seen a ref change his mind on a call because of what a player or coach says to him. It would have been a waste of time and energy on both of our parts. I would not have gained anything from the encounter, and so I just walked away.

                I’m driving on the highway with a buddy of mine and a car swerves in front of me from my right hand side. I slam on my brakes and brace for impact, but it never comes. The car speeds ahead without incidence. My friend reaches over and honks the horn. He looks at me and asks, “Why didn’t you do anything?” My response, “I pressed the brakes, what else could I have done to change anything?” We continue driving, eventually passing the “wrongdoer.” My friend raises his middle finger to the driver: to each his own.

I haven’t always been this way; in fact, when I was younger I was quite the troublemaker, reacting to things immediately and usually in a way that was followed by serious repercussion. My “default setting” seemed to be just a little more primal than most my age. Without going through too much detail, one day my mother got through to me (or maybe it was the leather belt?), and I decided to change, to change the way I acted by thinking before I acted, disciplining myself, and making myself aware of both how myself and others were affected by the choices I made. It’s almost cliché but now I approach anger with laughter, toughness with kindness, and hate with love.

It’s a tough process. It’s a process that takes time, a process that takes patience, a process that I’ve been working on for a long time. It has almost become second-nature, but I’m not going to lie, I do slip up every now and then. Sometimes I do revert back to my “default setting”, but when I do, I make note of it. I look back at the circumstances and ask myself how my reaction could’ve been different and if I could’ve somehow guided the situation into a better outcome. It’s a process that isn’t used enough in today’s world.

In today’s world, it’s pretty tough to pull this off because there are so many times that you’re put in a situation where you’re not given time to think; sometimes you’re not even given the option to think. “Give me the first word that comes to your head.” I’m sure everyone has been in situation where they were asked what happened. What went wrong? And their response has been, “I don’t know, I just kind of acted, I wasn’t really thinking.” Pause.

Take the time to think for a second, you might be surprised by the outcome.