Reactive

I don’t believe in tit for tat.

It’s reactive. The behavior usually comes from a belief that something is “owed.” If you didn’t initiate the issue, it’s time to return fire.

Reactive behavior creates a cycle, because if both people are reactive, there is no resolution, only tallying.  

If you give me something, and I don’t give the same amount in return, the tally is on.

The tallying doesn’t stop with that conversation. It combines with the tally you’ve had in your head all day, and then you shift that over to the next person, and the game continues ad infinitum. Those original problems get buried so deeply that you forget them, but the feelings and tallying stay and affect everything.

Eventually, nothing is what it seems.

Have you ever seen someone screaming at the printer in your office? It’s never the printer…