My Dinner with a Bully

"You're right. Being glib like that was inappropriate and wrong. I'm sorry," I replied contritely.

"Too late. I must have had too many drinks at the Polo Lounge when I thought you could help me."

"I might have had one too many myself to think I could help you," I pushed back.

"Oh, screw it. I made the time on my calendar for this. Let's just move on and do it," he said in a self-serving semblance of graciousness.

"Not yet. I made an accidental glib remark, probably because I was having performance anxiety about seeing you, and then you reamed me verbally," I asserted. "That was a bit of overkill, I'd say, so I think you now owe me an apology."

"I said, 'Let's just move on,' didn't I?"

"You certainly did. Here's your lesson for today: You do regret, but you don't do remorse," I said. "You need to work on that."

"What's the difference?" he asked.

"Regret is where you admit wrongdoing and say, 'It won't happen again' and then say, 'Can't we just move on?' like you just said to me. Remorse is where you look deeply into the eyes of the person you beat up, see the damage you did, let them see that you accept responsibility for it, and then say, 'I did that. I was wrong. I'm sorry.' No excuses, no explanations, no defenses."

"Oh," he responded, a quick study even when exploring brand new territory.

I felt a little more optimistic before Frank came in the following week, but I still wasn't convinced he wanted to change. When he arrived for the next meeting, he seemed more enthusiastic. "What have you learned and done so far?" I asked.

"I've learned how much of a bully I've been, how much I need to change, and how much I want to change. I've also learned that I didn't know the difference between regret and remorse, but I do now," he responded mournfully, but happily.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I met with my 20-year-old drug-using, in-and-out-of-rehab, college-dropout son and told him I was sorry and wrong for going off on him for everything he did wrong. I told him I was sorry and wrong for almost never saying anything positive to him for what he did right -- and for driving him to the point of not caring anymore," Frank admitted, his eyes watering.

"What did your son say?" I asked.

Frank's eyes reddened with tears. "He looked at me and started to cry. Then he said, barely audible, 'I'm sorry for all the times I wished you were dead and all the times I tried to kill myself because I didn't see any way out.' I asked him why he didn't tell me it was so horrible. My son looked straight through me and said, 'You didn't want to know.' You know, he was right."

"You're incredibly goal and task oriented and tune out anything or anyone that gets in the way," I said. "That's why you're so successful at work and such a failure at life -- and why you're seeing me. Isn't that true?"

"You're right," he said pulling himself together.

"Here's your lesson for today: To reach goals, you have to keep control; to reach people, you have to give it up. See you next week."

When you're dealing with a person who won't do the right thing, words alone rarely have an impact. Doing the wrong thing is an action, not a statement. In the story above, it became rapidly clear that Frank wouldn't have listened to words. It was only when I threatened not to see him (something he was smart enough to know he needed) if he turned out to be a bully through and through that he really took notice.

Usable Insight: "Confront evil at the earliest opportunity." -- Walter Dunn

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