Column: Something About Nothing

My topic today is “jerks.” I am not talking about the soda jerk who makes us delicious concoctions. We love that type of jerk. I am not talking about the verb jerk, where you pull quickly, yank or twist.

No, I am talking about the definition of someone who, by the terms in the dictionary, is foolish, rude and behaves in a contemptible manner toward another person.

We are all jerks at one time or another, but most of us do not make a career out of being a jerk. We all encounter those jerks in our life who treat us with disrespect, make us feel less than we are and sometimes bring us to anger and tears.

We all remember popular TV jerks. We laughed as they zinged the people in their lives. If you Google top TV Jerks, Archie Bunker from “All in the Family” is at the top of the list. TV Squad actually lists Archie Bunker awards during the year. Archie was a jerk because of his abrasive manner with people and the treatment of his wife, whom of course he loved but treated shabbily. Of course we laughed when he called her a dingbat.

I wasn’t much of a “Honeymooners” fan with Jackie Gleason either. I admit I was very young when the show was on the air, but I don’t enjoy the reruns on TV either because of the way Ralph treated his wife. It was a comedy, Jackie was funny and of course people laughed.

There are examples of jerks all over the place on our television and in our movies. We love the jerks on television and in the movies. Do we love the jerks that we encounter in real life?

Let’s get back to real-life jerks. I do not see too many people laughing when confronted with a jerk. I see angry, hurt people when they are the target of a jerk’s actions. A jerk can be a stranger on the street, a friend, a boss, a family member and, yes, sometimes ourselves.

Jerks can make you feel inferior by their comments. Jerks live their life making themselves feel good by making other people feel bad. Or do they? I cannot imagine someone feeling good about themselves by making someone else feel bad. Jerks enjoy power that they have over people.

There are many books written to help all of us deal with the jerks in our lives. If the jerks are getting the best of us, we have to spend our valuable time reading so that we can learn better ways of dealing with them. Jerks are wasting our time!

I have encountered a few jerks recently, hence my sounding off about jerks in this column. I have to think that jerks are miserable inside and they want us to feel exactly as they do so they work at bringing us to their level. It seems to work every time with me. I feel bad, I get angry, I cry and I want to do everything I can to avoid that person. I do not like the person I become when running into a jerk.

The next time — and I know there will be a next time — I am treated poorly by a jerk, I am going to take a breath. I am going to remember that the jerk is probably hurting deeply inside and remember they probably know of no other way to ease that hurt. I am going to treat the jerk with kindness (possibly between gritted teeth), but I am going to treat the jerk with kindness and not let my reaction to their unkindness change me. The words are breathe, breathe, breathe.

If you are reading this column and perhaps you have been told that you are a jerk and the person giving you this description was serious, step back and ask yourself if this behavior is making you happier.

If you have to deal with a jerk, ask yourself what you can do to not let the “jerk’s” attitude affect you.

If all else fails, this quote from an unknown source lends relevance to the way you probably feel when encountering a “jerk.”

“Stress: The confusion created when one’s mind overrides the body’s basic desire to choke the living daylights out of some jerk that desperately deserves it.”

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send e-mail to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net. Her blog is paringdown.wordpress.com. Listen to KBEW AM radio 1:30 p.m. Sundays for “Something About Nothing.”