How you treat others is a direct reflection of how you feel about yourself.

Hi there, I was going to save this for this weekend's letter from Theatreland, but what the heck, I really wanted to share this so I'd do a quick post. Now I saw this on Facebook today and it really resonated with me with regards to something that happened to me today at work: how you treat others is a direct reflection of how you feel about yourself.

I do a scene with this guy - let's call him Mr Pisa for this story involves him leaning out at an angle like the leaning tower of Pisa. In this scene, Pisa has to lean over a railing - quite a number of us have to do the same thing on the same railing, but Pisa leans out especially far. I have seen him lean out so far that I have actually felt worried for his safety. Was it worth risking serious injury when we simply were not required to lean out so far - even the director said for us to simply stand by the railing and look over the railing, not put half our body over the railing. So tonight, after the show I made it a point to go and tell him about it. I said to him, "You know that scene when you lean on the railing? You lean out further than anyone else, please be careful."

Short and sweet - instead of thanking me for my concern, he got very defensive, even angry. He challenged me as to why I felt the need to caution him - did I think that he was going to fall? Did I think that he was careless or reckless? Did I think that he wasn't in control? Did I think that he would endanger his own life by leaning out too far? Why was I making it look as if he didn't know what he was doing? Did he look bad leaning out like that on that railing?

His reaction took me by surprise, totally. I thought I could simply say,  "please be careful" to a colleague at work without him taking offence! Heck, having been involved in sports all my life, people have often said those words, "please be careful" to me and I understand that when they tell me those words, they are expressing a concern for my well being and safety - rather insinuating that I would be so careless as to get myself into trouble or have an accident.

Anyway, as he stormed out of the room in anger, a friend who had witnessed the whole incident came up to me and said, "Leave him be, Pisa is very insecure about his performance in the show. He can't take any kind of criticism, even something that is perceived to be a criticism is crushing for him. I saw someone else make an innocent suggestion to him the other day about how he performs another scene and good grief, he got so upset. That other person didn't even mean it as a criticism - but Pisa couldn't handle it. He threw another strop like this as well, that's just the kind of person he is I'm afraid, terribly insecure. Quite a few of us have noticed the way he leans over that railing but we know what he is like, so we don't say anything. Leave him alone, if he wants to fall over that railing and fall 8 metres onto a hard concrete floor - then let him. We'll just stand back and say I told you so."

"Please be careful"

So there you go, that's my story for tonight. I am so glad that friend came over and explained it to me - otherwise I was already beginning to feel upset with Pisa's rather extreme reaction to my friendly word of caution. At first I wondered if he was reacting like that because I had said or done something very wrong - as it turned out, he was merely projecting his insecurities onto me. How many times have I encountered someone like that but mistakenly thought I had done something wrong? Too many times, too many times I'm afraid!

My dear readers, the next time you meet someone like Pisa who would project their insecurities onto you - never take it personally, always remember that they are the ones with the problem, not you. In the meantime, if Pisa continues to lean out this far on that railing, I'll let you know if he ever falls over that railing. I promise you that if he does, I'll be the first one there to say, "See? I told you so!" And I'll call an ambulance too, of course, I'm not that evil.