Earlier this year, I nearly got into a knock-down, drag-out fight at everyone’s favorite place—the United boarding gate in Newark Airport.
After excuse-me-excuse-me-pardon-me-excuse-me’ing my way through the sea of people to my spot in line, someone—in an entirely different line, let alone group number—loudly complained that I cut them off.
The thing is, I was in the right place: the Priority Access line.
But, they thought I wasn’t. Or, that I *shouldn’t* be.
And they were very, very angry about it.
To the point of telling all within earshot (loudly and colorfully) that I was trying to jump ahead of everyone.
Had this been a few years ago, I would have blown a gasket—or “clapped back”—while waving my boarding pass in their face, calling out each and every fecked-up assumption this person made about me cutting them instead of, you know, actually having a First Class ticket.
But…I didn’t.
For one: it was barely 5am and, going on zero hours of sleep, I was essentially a reanimated corpse.
And two: I knew EXACTLY who this person was.
As a fellow F (or Feeling) person myself, I know what it’s like to get that sudden hot flush of righteous indignation—warranted or not. And, as an E, I’ve done my share of making this anger known…loudly.
While I’ve never been as irate (or irrational) as this person, I understood full well what was happening—and why.
Which is precisely why I said nothing, letting them stew in their own Hulk-Ragey emotions without saying a word.
Or even acknowledging their existence.
Now, I wish I could say I stayed quiet because I’m a kind and forgiving person.
(I’d like to think I am… most of the time.)
Or that I had tapped into my inner-Jedi, wax-offing their bullshyt from my Zen-like aura.
Nope.
In fact, I had an ulterior, almost-nefarious motive:
Vengeance.
Let me explain:
By their behavior, I could tell exactly what their deep-seated, subconscious motivations were and how this person got their rocks off:
Attention.
Or, specifically, emotional chaos.
They were practically begging for their fill of heated emotion.
Anger. Hurt. Maybe even tears.
They needed it so much, they were holding out their beggar’s cup for everyone else’s emotional spare change, too.
So, I starved them of it.
And, because I didn’t feed the troll, so did everyone else.
In effect, I Peppermint Patty-ed the football… and socially-engineered the rest of the gang to kick them while they were down, too.
Which was only confirmed by all the rapid color-changes their face made as they sheepishly slunk past me down the aisle to Prole Class.
(Or, what my INTJ so lovingly calls the Economy cabin.)
I’ll admit, it felt pretty damn good.
In fact, I slept like a baby—my lie-down seat being extra comfy knowing that I won the battle against a terrible person *and* the war against my primal, knee-jerk nature, too.
While I can’t promise to give you the winning KO combination to every personality type, I can at least equip you with the self-awareness to know, disarm, and almost permanently disable your killswitches… and, by extension, those of others.
Even if for sweet, sweet revenge.
To learn these killer moves, go here: