The Difference Between Priceless Ideas and Worthless Ones

“I’m gonna find your wife and kids.”

The words honestly didn’t bother me much in the moment. Not because it was a pleasant thought — it’s just that, given the fact I didn’t then have any kids and the threat came from a drunk arrestee in the back of my patrol car, it came off as rather toothless. It was one of the last gasps of vitriol from the aspiring family finder (AKA drunk and disorderly arrest) I was looking at in the rearview mirror of my patrol car.

It had been a rather tense scene not ten minutes earlier.

I’d been dispatched to a disturbance at a popular club in town, the typical “INTOX MALE REFUSING TO LEAVE PREMISES” I’d see in the call comments on my patrol car’s laptop every Friday and Saturday night. I had hoped it would end as they usually did, with the resolve of said male quickly ebbing as responding officers jerked their cars into the parking lot, then one last verbal cheap shot at the bouncer before they sulked off into the night.

This one was different, though. Whatever the bar had served this guy had inspired him to believe he could take on a uniformed police officer that night. Arriving and approaching him in the parking lot, I started giving him commands. Previously alternately yelling at the bouncer and at his own compatriots – who to their credit were pleading with him to calm down – his cannon fire swung to me as I walked up. Squaring off with me, he slapped his puffed out chest. “I’m not afraid of you!”

‘Feeling’s mutual,’ I thought.

I unholstered my Taser, flicked the safety off and trained the sighting laser on his torso, telling him to interlace his fingers behind his head. He kept yelling, wildly gesticulating. It looked like he was contemplating charging me. My backup arrived, a SWAT officer I was thoroughly pleased to see. I kept Dr. Bravado talking while my backup officer approached from behind, forced him to his knees and got him in cuffs.

They kept him from gesticulating. They didn’t keep him from talking.

So on and on he squawked. He’d have me fired, you see. He knew important people, you see. And then, as we turned left into view of the jail, he uttered the line of the night, followed by unprintable musings about what he’d do once successful.

I wondered, looking at his flushed, sweaty face, about how I’d have reacted a few years prior, entering data into Excel worksheets in the bowels of a sporting goods warehouse. I thought about how little it impacted me now. And in the process I realized something:

From the wrong person, even the most priceless ideas are worthless.

I had no regard for the person in my vehicle. I had respect for his personhood, treated him with all the courtesy I could muster. But I had no regard for him beyond representing a police report that now needed written. And so this idea he proposed, this idea that would be so unspeakably vile, so bone chilling from someone else, came off sounding about like I did that time I told my grandparents I was going to sue them for something when I was eleven. It was perfectly hollow, a boast born of booze that wafted on his sour breath and bounced harmlessly off the Plexiglas spit guard between us.

My experience that night taught me two important things about the value of ideas:

Sometimes someone else is the wrong person.

You write something on the Internet. Someone on the other side of the continent sneers at it. What’s your gut level response? Anger. Defensiveness. A desire to defend yourself. Ask yourself, though: If you were talking to a group of friends in the food court in a mall, and a frazzled looking stranger walked up and started heckling you, how would you respond then? Likely amused disbelief, and confidently telling him to pound sand. Why?

He’s the wrong person, and his ideas about you are worthless.

He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t have context into what you were saying. His life has value, but his words may safely be ignored. Same goes for your Internet heckler. Or for a boss who goes beyond commenting on job performance to commenting on your character. Or for a family member who puts conditions on their love and acceptance.

Or, in my very specific case, for a drunk guy you just arrested.

But sometimes, the wrong person is you.

If you don’t have someone’s best interests at heart, your advice doesn’t matter much, even if it’s objectively correct. If you’re not investing in a community you belong to — no matter what that community is — your opinion about how it’s meeting your needs is worthless. To have priceless ideas, you’ve got to be the right person.

You have to be the faithful and attentive partner.

You have to be the parent showing kindness even in discipline.

You have to be the friend who divides sorrow and multiplies joy.

You have to be the industrious worker in your pursuits.

When those things are so, your words, your ideas, your opinions and judgments will have newfound power.

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Once I booked my foul new friend into the jail, I promptly forgot about him in favor of the requirements of the next call. And the next. And the next hundred.

Until several weeks later.

I stopped a car for an expired license plate, and as was fairly common it turned into a warrant arrest; the driver was flagged as having a misdemeanor warrant, meaning I was compelled to arrest him and take him to jail to eventually meet with a judge. I always winced at delivering this news — you never knew how someone was going to take the idea their day was about to be interrupted by handcuffs, and over time I faced everything from sobbing teenage tears to wannabe tough guys wanting to throw haymakers.

While crestfallen, though, this gentleman took the news without protest. He told me he knew I was only doing what I had to and offered his hands for cuffing. After placing him in the back of my car, I looked again at his driver’s license, and then back at him. He seemed vaguely familiar. I pulled up his report history, and then:

“Well, well. Fancy seeing you again.”

His eyebrows arched after having been drooped and sullen. “What do you mean, officer?”

“You don’t remember our little interaction several weeks ago?”

“No…oh, were you the one who arrested me that night?”

“Indeed.” I felt a smug sense of righteousness invading me, started parsing and timing my words for maximum effect. “And frankly, I’m a little surprised to find you this cordial, given some of the things you told me that night.”

“…oh my God. I can’t remember anything from that night. What did I say?”

I looked at him in the rearview mirror. He was very obviously being sincere; you could see the concern etched in his face. I hesitated a beat, giving him a chance to reconsider. I wondered if I should even tell him, but decided it might influence how much he drank going forward, which in my mind would be a public service.

“Well, among other things, you promised to find my wife and non-existent kids.”

The color drained from his face as he slumped back in his seat. “Jesus, dude, I mean, officer — I am SO sorry. I had no idea, I had too much to drink, I didn’t mean any of it…”

Panic started clouding his countenance, and I realized he was probably wondering if he was going to be charged with making threats to an officer or something. I started to feel my smugness ebb away. I thought I’d relish the ‘gotcha’ moment. I didn’t. I judged this gentleman by one interaction, and that was wrong. It was time to make amends. I softened my demeanor.

I started to feel my smugness ebb away. I thought I’d relish the ‘gotcha’ moment. I didn’t.

“That much is plain. I didn’t take personal offense. I knew you were saying it to the badge, not to me. But maybe lay off of whatever you were drinking that night?”

Relief washed over him like surf, and he started spewing reassurances. “One hundred percent officer, thank you, I will, for sure.” The air clear between us, we chatted lightheartedly all the way to jail.

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And that’s the last thing I learned. Other people’s opinions come and go like tides. Sometimes they’re fueled by alcohol. Sometimes by anger. Or by jealousy. Or depression. Or trauma. Don’t let one expressed opinion characterize your view of someone else, or your view of yourself. Don’t put undue weight on the opinions of the wrong people, or the right people at the wrong time.

And be the right person yourself, doing what you ought. That’s how the most priceless ideas are ultimately cultivated.

 

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This post was previously published on THEUNBOTHEREDFATHER.COM.

 

 

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Photo credit: iStock.com