A Story About Patience

Being patient with people is a very useful skill in the modern world. In this instance, a man was faced with a decision to make after being called a racial slur. He chose the nonconfrontational option and ended up with the last laugh.

Around 2016 when I was in middle school a man came to our school to give us a presentation on conflict. I can’t remember his name or position, but he was an elected government official of Lewiston. He told us a story about a confrontation he had with foreigners and how being patient helped him. Prior to his appearance at our school, he had a deal proposed to him of some sort with a foreign country and he had a meeting with their representatives about the said deal. On his way walking to the building for his meeting, he saw some guys smoking outside, he then explains how they looked at him, laughed, and mumbled a racial slur. The guy telling us the story just so happened to be black and most likely offended. He had a choice, he could tell them off or just ignore them and be the bigger person. He ended up just ignoring them and proceeding on with his day, not knowing he would see them later.

When he arrived for the scheduled meeting he saw that the foreigners proposing some deal were the same people who called him the slur outside. This is the moment they realized he would be the one rejecting or accepting their deal. “Their jaws dropped to the floor” is how he explained it, this made everyone in the audience die of laughter. He then sat through their presentation without saying a word. This is when he saw how he would get his revenge without conflict. At the end of it without any hesitation, he denied their deal.

In conclusion, by being patient and level headed he avoided confrontation. But the people in the wrong still got their justice. No one was harmed and the other guys wasted their time and messed up this deal by saying one word to the wrong person. This story stuck with me and I still think of it often

“Office workers in a meeting” by World Bank Photo Collection is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.