A Tranquil Afternoon with Much Chomping

I have a new coworker who sits right next to me and makes a cacophony of unsavory noises with his mouth off and on all day long, eating-related and otherwise: much slurping, smacking, teeth-sucking, and chatting with others while his mouth is obviously full. I have been irate about it for a week.

I finally discussed the matter with my boss, who said he would also find that irritating, but, fortunately, he couldn't hear it from inside his office, and that I should just ask the person to stop, in a lighthearted manner. Given that I was boiling with resentment at this person and had stopped acknowledging his existence at all, I couldn't quite picture making a lighthearted remark to him about anything.

I was reading two books this weekend. One (The Wisdom of Insecurity, by Alan Watts) talks about the futility of separating ourselves from our experience, because they are one and the same. It's not like there's me and my pain; it's all one thing, and my efforts to separate the two are what cause or worsen the misery, but if I can realize the futility of the effort, the mind has a wondrous capacity to absorb and deal with discomfort, according to this author.

The other book (Radical Acceptance, by Tara Brach) talks about pausing to take note of our actual bodily experience--noticing what we feel in our throat, chest, and belly--and accepting that our experience is currently as it is. She tells an anecdote about being on retreat and being irritated by everything: people sneezing and making noise and this, that and the other.

This sounded rather familiar, as I have lately been irritated by this smoking neighbor, the other smoking neighbor, the loud neighbor, the other loud neighbor, etc. And then the new coworker making the unmannerly noises. All very annoying.

The second author realized she had become very rigid, mentally saying, "No! No! No!" So she decided to try saying "yes." Yes to the lousy weather! Yes to the person who just sneezed on me! Yes to the cigarette smoke coming in the window! Yes to the sounds my coworker is making!

(This doesn't mean that you might not end up making a request of the sneezing person or the coworker, but rather that you pause to assess your actual experience and see how you're making it worse by how you think about it and tense up.)

So this weekend I practiced saying yes to various irritations, and resolved that I would also say yes to my coworker's noises.

After all, it's not like having my fingernails pulled out by Homeland Security. (I saw a Homeland Security vehicle pass by this weekend. It was frightening.) If I WERE having my fingernails pulled out by Homeland Security, no doubt I would say, "Oh, if only I could be in my cube listening to my neighbor eat his lunch!"

I'm pleased to report that either my coworker has gotten the hint by some other means, or the magical power described by the first author really works, or I've gone stone deaf, or it's that I was making the actual experience way worse via my mental processes.

The coworker is making the noises, but of course it's not literally every second, and when it happens, I think, "Yes to that noise," and it's over (for then, at least) in an instant.

Whereas last week I was thinking, "I hope he's not going to make that noise. Oh, I'll bet he's going to at any moment. Aargh--there he goes! This is terrible! Where does he think he is, in a barn? Maybe I should try to get him moved to another cube. Maybe I should move to another cube. Maybe I should try to work at home every day. There is not one place where it's quiet and peaceful! It was perfectly peaceful here until this fellow arrived; if only he would leave or if only he had never come." Etc. And THAT process basically took all day long.

(I just heard this coworker say to someone else, "I see your ball hog scored 81 points last night. What's wrong with that boy?" Kobe Bryant, playing basketball. I nearly chuckled at that. Maybe we'll even end up being friends.)