Life's little tests

Each day new tests present themselves to each one of us; and we all have a choice to make. Do we ignore them and fail, therefore allowing them to reappear again and again? Or... do we learn from them and transform our actions in the future.

A little (and silly) example of this is something I experienced today.
I was swimming at the gym on one side of the pool, along with another person. The other side of the pool was empty. A woman and her 10year old (ish) daughter get in and swim in front of us, and against us. I didn't complain (out loud anyway) and carried on. As time went by, I noticed she was winging at me, so I asked her what was wrong. "You're f*cking splashing me" she shouted, stopping all the conversations in the pool dead. "Sorry, but it is a pool" I replied. The conversation went downhill from there., leaving me to point out that she deliberately swam in front of me when the other half of the pool was empty. She just carried on shouting saying how pathetic I was for splashing, blah blah. (I am a fast swimmer, and the splash was from the kicking!) You may ask why i didn't just swim on the other side! Its shorter, I'm a fast swimmer, she was a beginner.

A while ago, I would have been more verbally aggressive and told her what to do, but I allowed her her rant but still pointed out the facts calmly. Though... I did tell her daughter not to learn from her mummy as she wasn't very polite (as the mother is flippin' me the bird).

A good way of overcoming this behaviour, is to try and understand where the other person is coming from. Had she had a bad day? Does she not like getting her hair wet etc? It turns out she has only been swimming for a couple of months, and whilst that doesn't excuse her actions, it does explain some of her attitude. She pointed out that she will sit back and laugh at me... why? Because I splash when I swim? The truth was, she was transferring her embarrassment. So I did learn from this silly situation.

So, did I let myself down? A little I think... I could have said nothing and completely ignored her, or even splashed less, but I still think it's important to tell speak your mind, but in a thoughtful manner. We'll see, I certainly handle these situations a lot better now than I used to.