Intense Humility

Three years ago, I was diagnosed with ADHD. One of the things that it confirmed is thta I am an intense guy.

A few days ago, as I was doing a daily support call with a friend about, I realized that, in the days preceding the current call, I had been trying to impress him with the intensity of my feelings, using flashy words and trying to be as colorful as possible.

At that precise moment, I simply decided to speak quietly. My gut feeling told me I was able to do it. To be honest, I will admit that God was sending a message. Yes, I am a believer. Catholic, actually. But no worries, this is not a Catholic blog, so I won’t try to convert you to my faith.

That event happened about four days ago.

Tonight, I was a participant in a Zoom meeting. I won’t reveal what it was about, because it’s not important for the point I will try to make.

After the first minutes that introduced the meeting’s concepts, a guy started speaking. It was expected. His speech was supposed to last twenty minutes.

Did it? I guess it did. I listened to him for about three minutes, then I left the meeting. Fortunately, there was another Zoom meeting thirty minutes later, on a similar topic, but with no speakers. Not that I wanted to avoid any speaker meetings, but one way or another was ok with me at that moment.

Why did I leave? The guy had a very energetic voice. I like that, because it gets and keeps my attention. Most of the time, anyway.

After a few sentences, he used the F word. It took me by surprise. Most people in those meetings don’t use such language, because it’s not needed. Humility is what is expected in those meetings. In my opinion, using swear words, or the F word, is colorful, but unnecessary, in such a context at least.

I am sure most people in the meeting appreciated the guy and what he said. Was my level of tolerance way too low? Maybe. But I was trying to learn about serenity in those meetings, and highly emotional words were not the way to go for me.

What are your thoughts?

The featured image comes from Gerd Altmann from Pixabay