I got stung by a bee this morning. Twice. It had been a long time since I'd been stung, so at first I didn't know what had happened, thinking I had something scratchy in my bathing suit.
But what became apparent fairly quickly was that I had a bee in my bathing suit. What the little bugger was doing in there, I have no idea. I apparently freed him from his distress while I was trying to determine what was in there and saw him walking across the right thigh of the suit.
And I smacked him (or her) dead, instinctively. It was an instinctive over reaction on my part, resulting in the unnecessary demise of the bee.
No big deal. Plenty more where that came from. Nothing he didn't deserve—after all, he stung me twice! And what was he doing in my bathing suit, anyway? Stupid bee.
Pretty standard. And a lot of the time, my instinctive reactions are pretty standard—because they are instinctive! We share these instincts, these standard reactions and their very commonness is what makes them seem okay. And for the most part, as these reactions also stay within certain standard boundaries, they are okay Bee stings, swat bee, bee dies. Move on.
But this morning, I've got the time for some reflection. The bee's motive was survival. Even without any anthropomorphising, it's not hard to understand that. It found itself caught in a strange place with something large and warm and moving and its choice to defend itself was instinctive. We both reacted from the same place of fear—and his was far more understandable than mine. I could have brushed him off my suit.
How often are my instinctive reactions within standard, acceptable boundaries, but also unnecessary and possibly hurtful? I can think of times when, as a parent of young children, a lack of emotional elasticity brought on by fatigue or some stressor the children couldn't possibly comprehend, resulted in an overreaction to children being children, e.g., noisy, really, really inquisitive, engaging in risky behavior, and so on.
Today, my overreactions are much more likely to be internal than overt. I read or hear something that rankles me and I get "bent out of shape" and have conversations with people who are not present and indulge in some thinking about what I'd do if I could.... Cop a resentment or, as I've heard it put, cogently, take poison and wait for somebody else to die.
Fork over my peace of mind, in other words. I can do this pretty much anywhere at any time. But, increasingly, when it comes to the behaviors of members of my own species, I try to remember to wonder why that person did, said, or thought that. Maybe it's a momentary lack of emotional elasticity. Maybe he or she just got stung by a bee.
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