It's Not You
Years ago, my husband and I were running a fairly busy mountain trail. We came onto the bend of a switchback and saw a cowboy leading a string of mules down the trail. Since we were on Forest Service land, we knew both us and the pack animals were allowed to be there. We stepped to the side of the trail to let the cowboy and his mules go down the trail.
The cowboy, seeing us, yelled at us.
"You runners don't know ANYTHING. You all spook my horse and my mules. You all need to learn some lessons in manners!"
We stood quietly on the side of the trail, his stock not at all spoked. He rode by us, continuing to to berate us for the sins of all trail runners, despite the fact we had stepped off the trail and his animals clearly didn't give a crap about us.
Once he was past, we started running again. We ran until we reached the mountain pass. We could see for miles in every direction. Mountains, lakes, and in the far, far distance, deserts.
On our way down, we marveled in the late summer meadows, the way the air hinted at autumn, and then in a switchback, lumbering up the trail, we saw a donkey.
This donkey had crap tied all over his saddle and panniers. I saw an enamel mug knocking against a rolled up yellow slicker. A plastic wash basin had a hole drilled in it so it could be looped by a string to the saddle frame. The panniers were rough canvas, and the donkey itself looked a little white at the muzzle.
Leading the donkey was a man, probably in his 60's, clad in denim suspenders and a flannel shirt so soft, it might have been transparent. He had a big belly, work boots, and a cap that looked fresh from 1900. In fact, the only clue that this man and his donkey were from this century, and were not some trail-based hallucination, was the plastic wash tub that knocked ever so softly against all the other donkey-based baggage.
We stopped and stepped off the trail, just like we'd done for the cowboy and his string. The old man looked up from his very slow ascent and saw us.
"Oh look at you all!" he called, his face split by a huge grin. "You all are so nice! And you knew to step aside for me and my partner here." He gestured lovingly at the trundling donkey. "Mighty kind of you. Isn't it just beautiful out here?"
We exchanged pleasantries, which lasted a while because this Santa-shaped guy and his ancient donkey weren't making any land speed records, and then we resumed our run once they passed us.
How different that cowboy and that old guy had been. The old guy had been so happy with us for the exact same thing the cowboy had been so pissed at us for. We hadn't changed anything we'd done, and yet we'd gotten two totally different reactions. And it made me realize, sometimes it's not you. It's easy to take things personally, but somedays you're that cowboy, and some days you're that old guy.
And I guess that's the rub of being human. We don't always get to be an old fat guy walking up a steep ass trail with his geriatric donkey, but man, can we try.