What’s Your End Game?

What happens when you don’t get your way? When you get mad, and then act upon that anger, what is your goal? What would make you happy again, or at least not mad anymore? What is your end game?

Let’s say you go out to dinner. The service is subpar, and you feel strongly that you didn’t get your money’s worth of food or service. So, on your way home, you whip out your phone and fire off a scathing Yelp review. You disparage the restaurant and its staff for the rest of the universe to see. That’ll teach ‘em!

But what’s your end game?

Is your hope that people will read your review and stop going to the restaurant? Maybe they’ll have to shut the place down…serves those losers right! Is your intent that everyone who works there will lose their jobs? Do you hope the workers’ children grow up in poverty because their parents sucked at serving you last Saturday night? Can we march them naked through town while yelling “SHAME!” at them for having the audacity to make you wait four minutes for your third side of ranch?

At what point in the possible flow of consequences is your righteous anger satisfied? How far does the universe have to bend to accommodate you and make amends for your inconvenience?

Stated more broadly, once something has upset your emotional equilibrium, what’s going to make you feel right again?

In this situation, what you really wanted was validation that you were right in being miffed, an apology, and a refund.