The Empty Boat, Stupid People, and Weekend Margaritas

Friends, I binge-read so many things, hoping to stimulate my brain. This week, I stumbled across an ancient Taoist teaching called The Empty Boat Theory. Like most great wisdom, it is both incredibly simple and annoyingly convicting.
The story goes something like this: Imagine you're floating peacefully down a river in a small boat. The sun is shining. The water is calm. Life is good. 
Suddenly, another boat crashes into yours. You immediately jump to your feet. "Hey! Watch where you're going!"
Your blood pressure rises. Your fists clench. You prepare to unleash a speech that would make a sailor blush. Then you look up and discover the other boat is empty. No captain. No passenger. No drunk guy staring at his phone.

Nobody. Just an empty boat drifting with the current. Instantly, your anger disappears. Why? Because there is no one to blame. There was no attack. No insult. No conspiracy. No intentional act of aggression. Just a collision.

The Taoist lesson is simple: much of our anger comes not from what happened, but from the story we tell ourselves about why it happened.

If we're being honest, we're pretty talented storytellers. Someone cuts us off in traffic. "What an idiot." Someone doesn't return our text. "They're ignoring me." Someone walks by without saying hello. "They're mad at me." Someone criticizes our idea. "They don't respect me."

The collision occurs, and before the dust settles, we've already written an entire screenplay complete with villains, motives, and dramatic background music.

The problem is that most of the time, we have no idea what's actually going on in the other person's boat. Maybe they're exhausted. Maybe they're grieving. Maybe they're overwhelmed. Maybe they're distracted. Or maybe, and let's be honest, because it's the weekend and we're making margaritas today, they're just stupid.

Which brings us to one of my favorite philosophical side dishes. Hanlon's Razor. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Now, before anybody gets offended, understand that stupidity isn't always a permanent condition. Sometimes it's temporary. I've had moments of brilliance, followed immediately by moments that would make a goldfish question my decision-making.

We've all sent the email to the wrong person. I forgot an important date. Walked into a room and forgot why we entered. Put the milk in the pantry and the cereal in the refrigerator. 
Sometimes the boat isn't malicious; the captain is simply having a rough day. The challenge is that our ego loves assigning intent. Our ego wants villains. Our ego wants to be the victim. Our ego wants evidence that the universe revolves around us.

The Stoics understood this thousands of years ago. They taught that we don't control what happens to us. We control how we respond to what happens to us. A rude comment, a thoughtless action, a disappointment, or a collision. Those things happen. The question is what story we choose to attach to them. 

Viktor Frankl famously wrote that between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom. The Empty Boat Theory lives in that space. The bump happens. Pause. Before you assign motives. Pause. Before you launch the counterattack. Pause. Before you decide, someone has been plotting your downfall since kindergarten. Pause.

Maybe the boat is empty, or maybe the person steering it is carrying a storm you cannot see.

As I reflected on this idea, I realized Jesus often responded this way. He constantly encountered people whose boats were colliding with everyone around them. Tax collectors, fishermen with tempers, religious leaders full of pride, crowds demanding miracles, people who were afraid, people who were angry, and/or people who were lost.

Rather than reacting to their behavior, He often looked deeper than the collision itself. He saw the storm. He saw the wound. He saw the burden. He saw the person.
That may be one of the hardest life lessons. Most of us react to behavior. Wisdom tries to understand what produced it.

There is one final twist to the Empty Boat Theory that may be the most important of all. The goal isn't merely to see that other boats are empty. The goal is to empty your own.

This is an incredible challenge for me: to have less ego, less pride, less need to be right, less need to win every argument, less need to take every slight personally.

Because here's an uncomfortable truth: many of the collisions in my life haven't happened because somebody else's boat was full. They happened because mine was. I was full of assumptions, full of expectations, full of insecurity, full of certainty that I knew exactly what someone else meant.

When our boats are packed to the brim with ego, every bump feels like an attack. When our boats are lighter, collisions become easier to absorb.

So here's a weekend challenge. The next time someone irritates you, before writing the screenplay in your head, ask yourself a simple question: "What if the boat is empty?"

You may discover they weren't trying to hurt you. You may discover they're fighting a battle you'll never see. You may discover they're just having a terrible day. Or you may discover that Hanlon's Razor was right and they're simply being stupid.

Either way, you'll save yourself a tremendous amount of anger. If all else fails, pour yourself a margarita, sit by the water, and think: life gets a lot easier when you stop arguing with empty boats.