Thick Skin
My first job after college was writing sports for a newspaper in the Mojave Desert. Because I was the new guy in the department, I was tasked with authoring brief, two-sentence snippets about Little League Baseball games played in our coverage area each night. In the sports journalism world, this chore is the equivalent of hazing freshmen fraternity pledges by dunking their heads in the toilet or making them run naked through the quad. The Little League beat necessarily means fielding phone calls from irate Little League parents who believe their sons were slighted—if not completely disrespected—because their bunt single or bases-loaded walk wasn’t mentioned in a snippet.
“You call yourself a journalist?!” they’d bark. “I’m canceling my subscription to this rag!”
I was 24 years old at the time, and I’ll cop to the fact that these phone called got to me. I was sensitive. I wanted to make my editors happy, and this wasn’t quite what I’d pictured when I dreamed of being a journalist. But in the 15 years since that time, I’ve learned to be grateful for that chore. It helped me develop a thick skin and a measure of perspective. If you put pieces of yourself out there on display—which so many of us do—you must prepare yourself for the inevitability of criticism and, in some cases, personal attack.
That training came in handy a couple of times yesterday.
What I dislike about thick skin is the plain truth that it’s a defense mechanism, and sometimes defense isn’t the appropriate posture. Yes, it’s helpful to be able to deflect the incoming barbs and attacks, but conflicts are a lot easier (and more interesting) to manage when you’re able to throw some punches of your own. But I dare not.
Be the bigger person. Take the high road. Turn the other cheek.
I try.
But lately what I find the hardest posture of all is restraint—and perhaps that’s a sign that my skin isn’t as thick as I thought it was.
People take shots. They just do. And sometimes it feels like shooting back would make it all go away. It’s like an open invitation to stand on top of the table, pound your chest, assert your dominance. But that never ends well. It’s no different than burying hurt feelings under drugs or booze or a half-gallon of rocky road.
Be the bigger person. Take the high road. Turn the other cheek.
I have taken a step back this morning, looked at the bigger picture, and reminded myself that restraint is almost always the smart choice. Not as exciting, nor as fulfilling, but almost always smarter.