Graham🐝 Edwards

6 years ago · 1 min. reading time · 0 ·

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Changing the narrative...

Changing the narrative...


A recent event has had me reflecting and wondering if it all could have played out any differently — alas, I think I simply had no choice but to change the narrative, and I suppose I had to do it in a dramatic way.

90b949ff.jpgHave you ever come around the corner to find yourself faced with "mischief" that suddenly increases your immediate possibilities exponentially? That literally happened to me as I rounded the bend with my pizza dinner in hand. This particular "mischief"  came in the form of three people, who moments before I passed them, had thrown something at a passing taxi. The taunts for pizza soon followed, and shortly after that the stomping of feet as if they were chasing me — an annoying but harmless narrative.
That was until one of them ran up behind me and jumped in front of me screaming. I then added my own narrative — and punched him in the head.

It was more of a symbolic punch because I had two work-bags over my shoulder and a pizza in one hand. Looking shocked he then screamed, "You hit me". After an exchange of bad punches and the death of my pizza, a Samaritan arrived and deescalated the situation. After some shouting I headed home with the proposition of having to make dinner.

I can still hear one of them saying, "We were just trying to scare him".

I will admit this post is somewhat cathartic but there is another important consideration aside from describing a very poor street fight.  As pointed out, their narrative was to cause "mischief" and "scare"people, and that narrative was only going to change if something happened that did not align (or feed) their story (and shift the paradigm). The narrative shifted from hassling a guy with a pizza to dealing with a poor street fight (and how to get out of it). The Samaritan offered that opportunity (with little resistance), and gave us a new narrative to continue the day.

All of this became a reminder that there are times that if you want to change a narrative, you really have to change the narrative... and sometimes pizzas do get hurt.

iamgpe

PS — I'm not advocating violence, but it's never a good idea to attack someone from behind.


Comments

Graham🐝 Edwards

5 years ago #4

#2
Thanks for the note Harvey Lloyd... yes it reminded me that it can all go south quickly and sometimes situations present themselves and you have no choice but to deal with them.

Graham🐝 Edwards

5 years ago #3

#1
Thanks for the note Jerry Fletcher. I am not... hopefully it is a bit of a lesson for them as you are right you never know what you will get when you randomly attack someone...

Harvey Lloyd

6 years ago #2

Graham\ud83d\udc1d Edwards i am right there with you. It appears that today many folks see mischief as you call it at a little too aggressive scale for my taste. The edge that these folks play in verbally and sometimes with intimidating posturing its hard to tell if its mischief or its decision time. We discuss this within our family as we have experienced such behaviors within public settings that gives you that fight or flight sense. We now operate within condition yellow as it is called. Very sensitive to your environment and ready to move the family away from what is something more than mischief. Sorry you went through that, i know it changed me in public spaces. You become more alert to your surroundings and never quite get back to the everything is beautiful place. Glad it was just mischief.

Jerry Fletcher

6 years ago #1

Graham, Are you a former service man? An attacker in the USA would be taking his life in his hands should he target some of our "not mentally back from combat veterans."

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