an unfortunate thing

i was one of the people he called about an hour after the interview. he sounded weird. even delirious. kept on laughing at himself. his stupidity. he told me the story. and i ended up laughing, too. he couldn't believe that he absentmindedly just drove that car into the flood.

and the next thing he knew, water was rushing inside. and he stopped moving. and all he was thinking about were his law books. but he was still laughing. he was asking me if i saw him on the news. i told him i didnt. nevertheless, he regretted that interview. because his knee-jerk reaction was to be on the offensive. and he just blamed everyone else for his predicament on national tv. as he was talking to me, he was so remorseful, so sorry he said it. it just came out of him in rage at himself, mostly.

he was still in the vicinity of the flooded area, waiting for the family driver to assist him. i had to hang up because i had a meeting to attend.

the next thing i knew, it was going viral in a very bad way. he texted asking for help to put the darn facebook hate page down. i tried to do my part but unfortunately, facebook never took it down. it was classic, the way everything was snowballing much to his humiliation.

i havent known him for so long. but he was a genuninely nice guy. not arrogant or abrasive at all. i didnt even realize he was summa cum laude. but during that short time i got to know him, he was actually so accommodating. he even hosted a little dinner for his new-found friends (our barkada).

i felt really bad for how this turned out for him. bizarre.

my own analysis. chris has been working himself too hard studying for the bar exam. that guy would actually spend hours in coffee shops pouring over books, going home in the wee hours of the morning. he actually figured in a car accident previously, when he took a micronap while driving.

that morning, he was rushing to pick up his wife. he was probably lacking sleep again. and all good judgment was just out the window. he was so distraught. and when interviewed by the reporter, he was on the defensive. and the lawyer training taught him that a good offense was the best defense. and that was what he mounted. an offense blaming everyone else but himself. knee jerk reaction coming from a stressful stimulus.

my lesson here: analyze yoursel. what buttons will you push during moments of crisis, of urgency. what is your knee-jerk reaction? passive or aggressive? is your reaction helpful? productive? if not, you may like to unlearn that reaction by replacing it with a more productive one. do it consciously until it becomes second nature. then your knee-jerk reaction, if and when a moment happens, would be positive.


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