I don’t know if I’ve shared this with you or not, but I volunteer with an e-mentoring program, http://www.icouldbe.org/ It’s a way to help hundreds/thousands of students as they transition from junior high to high school and out into the adult world. All you have to do is give a bit of your time to help guide these students in the direction they want to go, focusing on educational planning, community service, financial literacy, and career exploration. It’s a pretty cool program, and it gives you a chance to tell teenagers what you wished adults had told you when you were their age… to make the transition between adolescence to adulthood easier.
It’s not a perfect system. Because this is a funded program, there are “forbidden, taboo subjects” that, we as mentors, cannot discuss with the students, even if the students ask us about them. Our correspondence is restricted and reviewed by the administration before reaching the students. Personal information and predetermined key words are automatically deleted from correspondence.
Granted, all are necessary precautions, but they do censor the inquisitiveness out of the teenagers. The students are not allowed to ask the questions they most want to ask — but are too afraid to ask their parents or teachers…
This is one reason that I am so determined in getting the Ready or Not… book out there, to address some of the subjects that cannot be addressed in conventional forums.
But, something is better than nothing; and icouldbe.org is certainly filling an important need.
And I’m enjoying meeting the students and answering their questions about different career paths, college fears and expectations, and their questions, in general.
One student emailed an interesting question. He asked: In your particular field, do you have to deal with agitated people, and if so, how do you deal with them?
Gosh! It’s embarrassing to admit that, not only have I had to deal with agitated people, but I have been an agitated person that others have had to deal with — which, I guess, makes me an expert on the subject and allows me to comment on both sides of the issue.
I really feel that all of us, at one time or another, have dealt with both irritated and irritating individuals — and have been irritating to others, as well. [I can’t be the only one!]
It’s really an interesting phenomenon to experience, if you stop and think about it.
When I have to deal with an irate and defensive individual, my instinct is to protect myself by putting up barriers against this emotional and unstable person who is displaying irrational and aggressive behaviors.
On the other hand, when I turn out to be that irrational and irate individual, I see myself as a righteous person, standing up for myself, not allowing others to stomp all over me!
Which perspective is correct? Which reflection in the mirror is real?
What’s really going on here?
Well, the basic problem is that we’re all human; and because of that, we operate primarily out of our own self-interest. Logically, at some point in time, my self-interest is going to get in the way of your self-interest. Sooner or later, one of us is going to step on the other's toes and get in the other’s way — because our expectation of the other is not being met. It’s inevitable.
If the situation isn’t handled properly, by the end of the interaction, we both end up frustrated and hurt because neither got what we wanted from the other. No one’s happy and everyone is agitated.
By the end of the encounter, we see our own reflection in the eyes of the angry person standing before us.
Well, my student-friend did ask me how I handled agitated people. A better question would have been…How should we handle agitated people?
I’ll try to answer that the next time we're together…
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