THIS STORY WAS WRITTEN FOR THE MEDIUM PUBLICATION THE CHALLENGED.
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All my life, I’ve been a good little boy. That’s almost 76 years of niceness. Do you know what that does to a person?
Of course, there was that time when, in 8th grade, for some long-forgotten reason, I slugged Tommy Grayden in the back of the classroom. But, me being me, I looked for Tommy at our 60th reunion to apologize. It turns out he had died the year before of a heart attack. Naturally, I felt guilty.
I’ve always wanted to be more forceful, like the tennis shoe lady in the first photo. I’ll bet she never suffered fools. Spoke her mind. Instead, I’m like her partner, who sits there contentedly, after a day of pleasing people.
Like my Medium friend Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, who asks us to write about a bad habit we would like to lose.
Who could turn down Vidya?
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Between you and me, I’ve always wanted to be like this fella. And not just because of the apparent reason, though that’s not irrelevant.
I’m guessing he would be someone truly worthy of Vidya’s prompt, like Nick, a high school friend my father wouldn’t let me hang out with. You knew these yobs, smoking after school in the grove of trees across the football practice field. The guys who always had a date on Friday night. Who strode down the teenage hallways and byways with confidence and purpose, knowing they were the true king of the jungle. And grew up to be the man with the swag in the painting.
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Two weeks ago, I made a new friend. His name is John, and he was one of twelve in a Namibian safari group.
Everyone liked John, including our two leaders, even though on at least two occasions he put his rhino-like foot down and said we needed to do things a little differently. One involved the number of stretch breaks we were taking on the gravel and rut-filled Namibian roads, and the other whether we would eat our lunch in the van or on the side of the road.
“I need a flat surface to eat, what’s our hurry?” said John to guide Brian about three days into our two-week journey.
Each time he did this, my stomach tightened, though I, too, wanted what he did.
I admired his honesty and willingness to risk the displeasure of those in charge, which never came.
In fact, by the end of the trip, John’s forthrightness became one of our tight group’s tropes.
“Was I too cantankerous?” John asked me on our last night, after I had confessed to him that I find it hard to do what he did.
“No,” I replied. “Everyone likes you, particularly those of us who are trying to break a habit of people pleasing.”
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