Angry Words Written in Haste
There’s a say in Arabic that “One should count to ten before talking.”
Now I can see there was probably a reason for me to have ended up a translator and not a mathematician.
Figures and I, it has always been complicated.
Counting to ten is easy, a kindergarten child would say.
Counting to ten is a long ten-stop road trip that needs patience, time, and breath.
A patience that I don’t have, a time of which I’m always running out, and a breath that is definitely too busy catching.
But when it comes to instant reaction, whatever you do, don’t race me there. I will react before you even realize you need to take action to react. Fast reaction comes into play in the most natural spontaneous forms with a fine stock of ready words and sentences racing against my keyboard, desperate to be expressed, eager to be released, impatient to be freed.
Dramatic as all this sounds, instant reaction, impatience, and my obsessive-compulsive word release disorder came in handy whenever I was asked to translate and deliver in a short time that had no room for one to ten. Pressure and tight deadlines served me good because they fell directly in line with my character, and liberated me.
Translation impossible accomplished in no time. Send button hit. Shoulders laid back. Hands relaxed off the keyboard. I smile as the sense of achievement dominates my ego.
Then something comes up to shake up my day and disturb my tranquility, and this time it’s not about translation but rather a communication that needs a response, and I have to deal with it. Did I manage to deal with it without blowing a fuse?
I dealt with it exactly the way you figured. The whole built-in behavioral reactivity process is triggered again and the ready stock of words were evacuated rapidly, but this time with anger.
Response delivered. Hands off the keyboard. I read myself again. What have I said?!
Then I wished if I could go back in time to rephrase, restate, retell, review. But it was too late. What is said is said and what is sent is sent.
Finally, I decided to make peace with figures and count, properly and slowly.
One, two, three…un, deux, trois…. un, dos, tres… some things must be changed.