I was at the airport, about to leave the Caribbean on a redeye, when my partner and I visited a duty free store to get extra snacks for the flight. A saleswoman in the store told me she loved my pants (one of the three I bought specifically for the trip). I said thank you. Then she said something that seemed to completely contradict her previous sentence:
"Mango or Zara?"
I was so flabbergasted by the question that I blacked out completely (as in didn't remember where I got the pants) and just smiled and said, "I'm not sure."
Several ideas collided in this perfect storm:
- I don't consider Mango and Zara stores you get nice things at. The quality there is so low that I don't shop there.
- If she really loved my pants, why didn't she ask if they were from a higher quality store? Like Max Mara or Ralph Lauren?
- Was she negging my pants? Or me? Was this a backhanded compliment?
- Or is Mango and Zara stores the locals consider high end?
- I later remembered that the pants were actually from H&M, which, in terms of being cheap and low quality, is worse than Mango and Zara.
This right here is the moment that defines your character. You (I) have two choices:
- Assume it was an insult, switch into a bad mood, and become resentful towards a stranger.
- Assume the best of the stranger: that Mango and Zara is where she gets her best clothes from and that she has never even seen heard of anything better, like Max Mara or Ralph Lauren. (I mean, even my idea of high quality is just mid-range. I shop at Boss, for crying out loud, and consider Holland Cooper the epitome of luxury.)
Whatever the situation, every time I choose to think option 2, it becomes more and more natural to think that way without analyzing it like this.
RK
