The Man and the Hammer — or: Perspective is Key — In Peace and in Fights
“Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.” So does ‘fight’…
A man one day wanted to hang a picture and when he found out that his own hammer to fix the nail with was broken, he decided to ask his neighbour to borrow his hammer. While getting ready to leave his house and knock next door, the man started thinking: Hadn’t the neighbour looked at him askance the other day? Hadn’t he walked past him without greeting two weeks ago? Wasn’t his car always parked a little too close to the man’s own ground… Yes, definitely. The neighbour seemed to harbour a grudge, even was starting a little war against him. Ohhh, he would tell him where he came off!
And, storming out his own door, slamming it shut, walking with large, quick and hard steps towards the neighbour’s front door, he knocked, hard and loud. And when the neihgbour opened, the man screamed into the other’s shocked face: “Keep your damned hammer to yourself!”
Paul Watzlawick was an Austrian communication studies professor of high esteem. He wrote a couple of standard works.
A very funny book of his for people like you and me is called: “The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious: The Pursuit of Unhappiness” of 1983.
The story of the man and the hammer is taken from there and I paraphrased it here from memory.
The Thoughts, the View and the Pictures
What does it say? That we often not even notice how our thoughts distort our view on the world and our reactions to it. And thus the pictures in our minds’ eye.
A starter could be to try and be more careful in noticing the source of our reactions. Of our emotions, even.
Because, sometimes, our view and our thoughts get warped. And eventually a new conviction forms that informs our actions.
That way, our ‘neighbour’ will get a scream to his face, if we are not careful enough. When he actually didn’t do a thing.
So, try learning about your emotions, your thoughts and their source — and keep them healthy.
It’s so easy to be mistaken about the meaning of other people’s gestures or words.
