The fast food clerk moves in slow motion, tossing unrequested packets of “saltpepperketchup” in your general direction. The line of customers fumes.
The orderly threading of two traffic lanes into one is halted by dueling drivers who refuse to relinquish an inch.
The morning shock jock finds high humor in hanging up on callers.
The disgruntled politician bolts his political party, hurling insults like grenades in his televised departure.
Look around, and it seems as if the whole world sees itself as first in line at the “Complaint” window of a shoddy department store.
Kind of makes you wonder: Why is everyone so cranky?
Author C. Leslie Charles has a quick – and unpopular – answer: Look in the mirror.
What you, Cranky? We know what you think: You’re not cranky – or at least you wouldn’t be if everyone else would stop being so damned irritable.
Few people can walk by Charles’ provocatively titles “Why is Everybody So Cranky?” (Hyperion) with its chartreuse cover, without giving a knowing nod. Why indeed?
Her book is a catch-all of causes: time pressure, information overload, unrealistic expectations, simple failure to adjust to reality. Only our reaction to those stresses is in our control – and therein lies the trap.
“We say, “I’d be a better employee if I had a better boss.” Or “I’d be a better wife if I had a better husband.” As long as you continue to make excuses, your behavior won’t change,” she said.
Don’t get her wrong. There is plenty out there that warrants major-league crankiness. Infomercials. Stupid lawsuits. Cheap pantyhose. Whiny pro athletes. Orthodontia fees. Vacation crowds. Balky modems. Stickers on fruit.
And airports – nearly every chapter of her book mentions airports.
“I had an insight about airports after I wrote the book,” the author said cheerfully in a telephone interview from her East Lansing, Michigan, horse farm. “Airports are just like hospitals – except we get to keep our clothing. We’re treated as victims; we’re kept out of the loop; they don’t tell us anything. These mysterious things are going on around us, and we have no control.”
Or take traffic, that nearly daily source of crankiness for Jerseyans. She’s mystified by people who fail to grasp that traffic’s very predictability can negate some of its power to annoy. “They know there’s going to be traffic,” she said, “Yet cranky people treat it every day like it’s a surprise.”
She finds it distressing – and telling – that the term “road rage” is now used indiscriminately to cover everything from homicidal attacks to unintentional fender-benders. “Think about it: The word “rage” has become common usage,” Charles laments. “We never talk about “road rapture”.”
Here’s her common sense lecture for perpetually angry drivers: “On the road or off, how you react to others relates to your issues, not theirs. A little blip of crankiness is one thing, but intense anger or spikes of outrage directed toward strangers is a signal that there’s something in your life that needs attention. Figure that one out and we’ll never have to hear about you on the nightly news.”
Society wide incivility is nothing new, says Stephen P. Steinberg, executive director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn National Commission on Society, Culture and Community.
We hold to an ideal of a mythic past of civility and politeness, says Steinberg, conveniently overlooking the historical record filled with anger, dissent and vituperation. Rush Limbaugh’s opinions of Bill Clinton would barely register when compared to the criticism suffered by Abraham Lincoln, Grover Cleveland and Teddy Roosevelt. “They were subjected to absolutely brutal personal attacks and vilification,” Steinberg said.
What makes the current crop of incivility more corrosive is that it doesn’t take place in a context of deep, meaningful debate about essential issues. “What we’re missing now is the real substance of discussion. Yet we’ve retained the insults. When that’s all you have left, it seems to dominate,” he said.
The solution is not a thin veneer of civility brushed over unresolved issues. “Being civil, while it’s nice, isn’t the most important thing,” he said. Steinberg’s commission early on decided it was worth a little incivility if people are having a frank, honest and emotional discussion.
He cites common obstacles to meaningful dialogue: “We’re busier; we move around a lot; there are more of us.”
Charles points to many of the same factors, yet focuses more on the details. Take television weather reports. They’re no longer content to tell you the temperature and let you be the judge of whether that pleases you. Oh, no. If it’s hot, they insist on announcing the “misery index.” So even if you actually like hot weather, you’re already been primed to feel, well, miserable.
Such insights are propelled by a genuinely buoyant personality, a one woman “Up with People!” road show.
Yet Charles will be the first to tell you that she was severely cranky at several stages of her life. She got pregnant and married at 16, dropped out of high school in the 10th grade, and had 3 kids and a bad marriage by the time she was 20. At 23, she tried going back to high school, but flunked algebra again and became a two-timed dropout.
Her husband left her; she went on welfare. At one point she didn’t even have the $35 needed to fix her dog’s broken leg; the dog had to be put to sleep instead.
“I was cranky before it was fashionable,” she said.
Public assistance that funded two years of community college was her ticket out. She is now a remarried grandmother, professional business trainer and public speaker. Given her current polished success, she could probably get away with skipping over the dark and dreary chapters of her life. Yet she doesn’t.
“Otherwise, people look at me and say “middle class woman, middle-aged woman, easy life.” In speeches, I can see their eyeballs roll,” she said. “I don’t ever want to forget all that. In fact, my credibility comes from my lack of formal credibility.”
Her recommended solution to most of life’s little annoyances: change the things you can, get over the things you can’t.
“You simply are going to have to stand in lines or sometimes wait for what you want. Take it. Flights will be delayed or sometimes canceled. Endure it. You will be inconvenienced. Count on it. People are going to do things that irritate you. Expect it. Uncontrollables are a part of life. Accept it,” she writes.
In fact, while the book’s title tackles mere crankiness, read further and you’ll discover she’s really writing about people who truly, and profoundly, angry to the point of mild depression. Carry around anger over unresolved problems, and you will indeed blow up when the fast-food jockey fails to give it to you “your way”.
Yet she refrained from giving her book what would’ve been a more accurate title, “Why are you so angry?”
“If I wrote the book that serious no one would read it. Have you read “Triumph of Meanness,” by Nicolaus Mills? Now that’s a depressing book.” She may be on to something; her book is ranked 7,266 on Amazon.com while Mills is 138,841st.
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