Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Do you want to reduce the anger that people feel coming from you. Don’t stop shaking your fist; stop pointing your finger.

Each culture seems to have its own form of an angry gesture. The one that comes to mind in my own culture is the fist. Shake a fist at someone – they seem to get the idea that you don’t like them or are at least angry at them. The unspoken words, “I’ll punch you in the nose” or “I’ll plaster your face” or something like that comes across.

I want to discuss what I consider a far more prevalent and more angry gesture – the pointed finger.

I’ve seen people literally point a finger at another person. The pointed finger usually accompanies various statements that all seem to be a variation of:

It’s your fault.

I have met people who are so clever that they can point a finger at someone else while keeping both hands in their pockets. They are able to point at someone by just saying a few words.

But what’s the big deal? We are just assigning responsibility for a bad situation. That is a legitimate thing to do, isn’t it? Let the person who is responsible for a problem know of their responsibility so they can go about remedying the mess they created. Yes, I agree. That is a legitimate thing to do.

But that won’t change the world. The status quo will continue. Those who make the mess should clean it, but instead, what if I would extend all four fingers and the thumb of my right hand, a.k.a., a hand shake and say something like,

Let’s work together

or

Sometimes bad things happen, let’s move on

or

I’m your friend (or husband or father or colleague), let’s talk about this.

Why do we have to continue to point a finger. I believe the pointer finger was created to denote things, not people.