A while ago I got really angry over a thing that really…shouldn’t have made me angry, mostly because I took something personally when I shouldn’t have, because it wasn’t something personal. 

I was invited along with my best friend to another friend’s house for a barbecue and drinks with a few others. (I was the only sober person in that house FYI, not that it matters much) It was fun for a while, until one guy got so drunk that he…caused a ruckus, to put it mildly. To the point where the mood was thoroughly ruined for everybody, and it pissed me off.

The next morning I tried to get him to apologize, to take responsibility for acting like an ass and ruining everybody’s fun. Unfortunately, the dude was a jerk, and refused to accept his responsibility for how he acted on the excuse he was drunk and the other people there should have kept an eye on him like they were his freakin mother or something. 

(even though he knows that he’s a light weight and knowingly drank pass the point where he could pay attention to what he was drinking, and that nobody was responsible for his drinking except himself, and that the only other person that knew he was a light weight, the friend who invited everybody, actually apologized and took responsibility for not looking after him without being an ass, and that he was a fucking 23 year old grown ass man that shouldn’t expect people to hold his fucking hand)

Long story short I spent like five minutes yelling at the asshole with the hangover the size of a mountain (which he fucking desrved), fucking ballistic and demanding he act like a fucking adult…until he started crying, at which point I throw up my hands and arranged me and my best friend a ride back home.

While we were packing our stuff, and I was a bit calmer, I asked him ,”Did I go overboard?”

His answer was a bit confusing for me, “You did…and you didn’t.” I was too angry to ask him what he meant exactly so I just accepted and kept packing.    

I talked that incident over with someone who’s opinion I value and trust, and she told me a story that taught me a method of figuring out which things I should take personally and what I shouldn’t, and I’d like to share it with you:

A Rabbi is sitting in a train, humming peacefully to himself, on the seat in front of him is a vary large piece of luggage.

The train stops at a station, and a big man, all muscle and twice the Rabbi’s height, gets on. He walks over to the Rabbi, takes a look at the luggage occupying his would-be seat, and snarls at the Rabbi, “Hey Jew, take your luggage out of that seat.”

The Rabbi looks at the large man, smiles, and keeps humming.

The man gets angry, “Hey Jew! Didn’t you hear me!? I said take your luggage!”

The Rabbi keeps humming.

The man is really angry right now, and looks the Rabbi straight in the eye, “Jew, I swear, if you don’t take your luggage out of that damn seat, I’m throwing it out the window!”

And the Rabbi? He keeps humming.

The large man is true to his word, picking up the luggage, opening the window, and chucking it out of the moving train with a great big yell. He sits down in a huff and looks at the Rabbi, who is still humming, with confusion, “Why are you still humming? I just throw you luggage out the window!”

The Rabbi hums calmly, “That’s not my luggage~”

Moral of the story? The next time someone does something stupid, and you start taking it personally, ask yourself: “Is that my luggage?”

After she told me this story, I took a step back and looked at what happened a little more calmly and critically: It wasn’t my house he caused a scene in, wasn’t my party he ruined, I didn’t invite him, and I barely knew the guy. 

When my friend said, “You did and you didn’t.” He meant to say that while what I said was true, which is why nobody stopped me while I was railing the guy…there was really no reason for me to be the one to do it.

And why was that? Because it wasn’t my luggage.