Oh ye'll tak' the high road and I'll tak' the low road...

...and I'll be in Scotland 'afore ye. (Now I have that song going through my head...)

Well the low road may work better for getting oneself to Scotland but it doesn't work so well in real life situations.

Although sometimes I sure wish it did.

Yesterday I got an email from a person I worked with, off and on, many years ago.  I had created something and he needed a copy of it right away.  I mean, right away, like it was an emergency of sorts.  Under normal circumstances my response would have been "Sure, no problem, let me get right on that to help you out."

This time however,  I paused before saying that and getting right on it.

Why?

Because this man is mean.  M.E.A.N. And his wife, whom I'd also had the displeasure of working with, is also a nasty, petty, rude, and all-around disrespectful person, who had degraded and insulted me to my face, in front of others, many many times.  They both sabotaged my work and even now as I think about them, the visceral reaction inside my stomach is nausea and revulsion.

And here the guy was, desperately asking for my help.  And I had a choice. I could take the high road and help him out, or I could take the low road and give him a taste of his own medicine.

Between you and me, I sure wanted to take that low road.  And let me just say here that I would have been completely justified to take said so-low-it's-underground road.  I had no obligation or responsibility to help this person, who by the way, had actually made me cry on several occasions.  I could have ignored the email claiming to myself and the universe that it's my old email that I only check a few times week anyway (which is true, I just happened to have checked it a few hours after he contacted me). I could have ignored the email simply because of the horrible way he and his wife treated me repeatedly. If I really wanted to take the lowest road possible I could have answered the email by telling him that I couldn't help him out and he was up a creek, while laughing sinisterly to myself saying, "See? What goes around comes around jerk! I now have the power to make you miserable! Ha ha ha ha!"  I could have run this scenario by anyone who knows these people and our backstory and I believe that every single one of them would have said, "Why would you even consider helping this guy? He was so mean to you, his wife was so mean to you, let them feel what bad karma feels like for once." There was a certain degree of satisfaction that I felt in that moment, knowing that the tables were turned, and that I had the power to make this guy suffer...or at least be inconvenienced while he floundered around, figuring out a last minute Plan B.

So what did I do? (drum roll please....)

Sigh.

I took the high road.

I can't tell you how much I didn't want to! But the truth is, as soon as I read his email I didn't hesitate. I found what he needed right away, it took about 3 minutes of my time, and I sent it to him with a nice, cheery, "Glad to help, don't hesitate to get in touch if you need anything else" message.

Why the heck did I do this when I had every justification to not to?

Because I had the opportunity to create a world where people don't hold grudges.  Because I had the chance in that moment to craft a microcosm where people help each other in spite of past hurts and transgressions.  Because the only person I can control is myself and I want to hold myself to the standard of treating others the way I want to be treated regardless of how they may have treated me. And very simply, I helped this guy out because it was the right thing to do.  Period.

How often do we let our emotions and bad feelings get in the way of us doing what's right? How many times have we allowed the pleasure of the "dark side" to overtake the difficulty of staying in the light?  It is usually so much easier to, in the words of Darth Vader, be seduced by the overwhelming power of taking the low road or the path of least resistance; especially in times like these, when everyone around us seems to be very happily skipping down that low road with no apparent negative consequences.

But ultimately what is more important? Getting to have our moment of nefarious retribution, gleefully rubbing our hands together and twirling our villainous mustaches? Or helping out another human being in his or her time of need, and choosing grace that we would appreciate being extended to our own selves regardless of our past mistakes?

(As an aside here, I'm not saying all of this to show off what a great person I am.  Believe you me, throughout the entire time I was looking for the thing the guy needed, and for a good ten minutes afterward, I went off on a rant that would have made Dennis Miller proud.  My heart may have been in the right place but I was letting everyone around me know chapter and verse what these people did to me and how I had every right to take that all-too-enviable low road in this situation.)

The truth is, at the end of every day, I have to be able to lie my head down on my pillow and know that I did the best I could.  I have to be able to say to myself that I lived that day to the best of my ability, and made personal decisions that honored my own values and standards.  That's all we all can do. Had I not helped this person it definitely would have felt "good," but not the kind of good that you feel deep down in your bones when you know that you've done the right thing.  Especially when it was so much more difficult than doing the wrong thing.

So unless you're going to Scotland, my advice to you is to always, always, always take the high road. In the words of Wayne Dyer, "How others treat you is their karma. How you react is yours."