Separating Facts from Beliefs

So often in conflict, things are not really as they seem to be. In this e-zine I have included a poem by Mallory Cox which illustrates this point. In upcoming e-zines I will explore in more detail how our own thought processes can be our own worst enemy, and how we can work with them.

The Cookie Thief
by Mallory Cox

A woman was waiting at an airport one night,
with several long hours before her flight.
She hunted for a book in the airport shop,
bought a bag of cookies, and found a place to drop.

She was engrossed in her book,
but happened to see, that the man beside her,
as bold as could be,
grabbed a cookie or two from the bag between,
which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.

She munched cookies and watched the clock
as the gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock.
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by
thinking “if I wasn’t so nice, I’d blacken his eye.”

With each cookie she took, he took one too.
When only one was left, she wondered what he’d do.
With a smile on his face and a nervous laugh,
he took the last cookie and broke it in half.

He offered her half as he ate the other;
she snatched it from him and thought “O brother”.
“This guy has some nerve and he’s also rude,
why he didn’t even show any gratitude.”

She had never known when she had been so galled
and sighed with relief when her flight was called.
She gathered her belongings and headed to the gate
refusing to look back at that thieving ingrate.

She boarded the plane, then sank in her seat
then sought her book, which was almost complete.
As she reached into her baggage, she gasped with surprise—
there was her bag of cookies in front of her eyes.

If mine are here, she moaned with despair,
then the others were his and he tried to share.
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,
that she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.

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