Don't Get Mad, Get Curious, and Then Burn It All Down Anyway

By Laura Duncan-Wilgus

As we navigate the world, there are always some situations that seem divinely engineered to infuriate. Maybe you brought up an excellent point in a meeting only to have it ignored, then repeated verbatim by a male colleague to accolades, or a customer refused to tip because you weren’t smiling widely enough, or perhaps a relative shared a meme from a right-wing conspiracy website on your Facebook timeline with a smug caption about DemoCraps. When we feel ourselves reaching our breaking point, there are two choices we can make. We can respond immediately in anger, or we can take a more measured approach by stepping back and thinking things through. 

It’s important to take a moment to be introspective when our immediate reaction might be to explode. We call this “getting curious” and here’s how it works.

First, try asking yourself some questions.

Was there a way I could have prevented this from happening?

Is my response contributing to the situation in a negative way?

Is it my responsibility?

Is there a larger societal reason this is happening?

Once you’ve assessed what the heart of the issue is and the roles you, others, and your environment have played, you can move forward with your deep descent into a cool, calculated rage. 

Say your supervisor has an unfortunate habit of neglecting to respond to your time-sensitive emails and then blames you when your project misses the deadline. Frustrating, right? It might be tempting to storm into their office and viciously jab the computer screen while emitting a bone-chilling primal scream.

Whoa! Let’s get curious instead.

Was this series of mistakes intentional?

Is my supervisor truly this incompetent?

Is losing this position as a bullet point on my resume going to be worth the sweet revenge?

If you take this moment to really break down what’s going on, you’ll see that the answer is clearly yes. Feel validated in your emotional breakthrough as you pour coffee creamer deep into the carpeting, remove the screws from the cushy desk chair, and BCC your supervisor’s direct superior on every single email and calendar notification you’ve sent over the past several months with five winky face emojis as the subject line.

Maybe the man you’ve been seeing mentions over dinner that women ought to be more careful so they don’t “make themselves into targets” and should stop throwing good guys like him under the bus. It sure is tempting to reach across the table and stab your fork right through his hand, isn’t it?

But what if we get curious here, too?

Am I being unfair?

Is he making a good point?

Do I need to modify my behavior to ensure my safety instead of demanding men do better?

You’ve stepped back, thought it through, and what do you know? The answer is absolutely not! Now that you’ve processed the situation you can see that a more fitting reaction would be to ask to borrow his phone, open his browser, make a shockingly large donation to a women’s organization in his name, chug his wine, and high-five the waitress on your way out of the restaurant.

Once you’ve taken the time to put this strategy into practice, you’ll find that your emotional intelligence and sublime, methodical, justifiable vengeance truly empower you to move forward in ways that you never dreamed. Happy Torching!