Killing 'Roaches

Photo by Erik Karits on Unsplash

I landed at the airport at 11p.
I think in my earlier days, I actually liked flying.
Nowadays, I understand why John Madden took his bus everywhere.

I saw that my hotel was about an hour away from the airport.
I assumed that obtaining my rental car would take about 30 minutes or so.
I get to the rental car line and it’s already 7 people deep and there’s only one employee on shift.
By the looks of the 7 people already in line, my 30 minutes or so was a pipe dream.

As the minutes turned into an hour, I could feel the heat rising from the depths of my bowels.
Why is this taking so long?

I remember the few times when I worked at Foot Locker and was left on the floor by myself when a rush just happened to happen. It’s stressful. It’s beyond your control. You have to touch base with people as they come in. Get the shoes they want to try on. Just move move move; sweat sweat sweat. And you hope to God that your coworkers get back ASAP.

This wasn’t the employee’s fault.
From what I could see, he was trying his hardest to keep things moving.
He was more stressed out than we were frustrated.

So I started asking myself: what is the point of getting upset?
Getting upset isn’t going to do anything.
In fact, getting upset is going to slow the whole process down, not just for me, but for everyone else.

This lady started to get agitated and was about to say something to the employee, but the people in line stopped her and said, “What’s he gonna do?”
I think we were all aware that if someone complained, it would slow everything down even more.

He did mention that the other terminal had two or three staff members working and would probably move faster. But by the time he offered that suggestion, there were only two customers in front of me. Besides, I was pot-committed.

Well, about an hour and change later, it was finally my turn.
I walked up to the employee, gave him my license and credit card, and told him where my reservation was.
“Uh, sorry. We can’t take that reservation here. You have to go to the other terminal for that.”
“What do you mean you can’t take that reservation here? I stood in this line because I was instructed by an airport employee that this was it. And the sign for the company I rented from is right behind you.”

“I know. But I don’t have access to that information on this computer. I’m really sorry.”

It’s almost 1am.
And I’m exhausted.
I can feel my grip on sanity loosening.
But all of a sudden, I’m reminded once again:
What’s getting angry really going to do? What am I going to accomplish by taking my frustration out on this man?

It would accomplish nothing. Nothing that would solve the problem faster, anyway.

So I (probably fake) smiled and said, “Alright.” And I walked over to the other counter.

After a good fifteen-minute walk, I arrived.
Only one person in front of me. Not bad.
When it was my turn, I found out there were no cars in the parking lot. After confirming my reservation, I’d have to take a shuttle to another terminal to get my car. It also looked like the people waiting for that shuttle had already been waiting a while.

“But,” he said, “I have two electric cars. A Tesla and a Bolt. None of these people wanted an electric car, but if you do, you can leave right now.”
I opted for the Bolt.
I got to my room a little after 2am and crashed. Without washing off all the airplane germs covering me.

The next morning, as I gathered my bearings at a nearby coffee shop, I was scrolling TikTok and came across this video (video if you’re interested: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8sf2AN7/)
But here’s the transcript of the video:

If every small inconvenience ruins your mood, the problem isn’t the world. It’s your mind.
Emotionally secure people don’t react to small things.
Wrong coffee order, they shrug.
Flight delay, they read.
Long wait, they wait.
No drama. No outrage. No unnecessary argument.
Here’s why:
When you’re in survival mode, your tolerance window shrinks. Stress is already high. Pressure is already high.
So a wrong order feels like disrespect.
A delay feels like an attack.
A line feels like injustice.
The situation is small, the reaction is enormous.
Because emotion is currency. Spend it on everything and you go bankrupt.
Emotionally wealthy people don’t fight every battle.
They choose where their energy goes.
One simple rule: if it’s in your control, fix it. If it’s not, let it go.
Real wealth isn’t your bank balance.
Real wealth is how many small things you can walk past without flinching.

Now, I have no idea what qualifications this creator may or may not have. And most things from social media should be viewed with discerning eyes, hearts, minds, and souls.

But he raises some good points.

I started thinking about leadership. Especially because of how he said, “Emotion is currency.”

Years ago, I read a book called Killing Cockroaches.
The basic idea is that if every tiny problem in an organization gets treated like an emergency, eventually the entire culture becomes emotionally reactive. Which echoes Vibe Samurai’s video.

Years ago, I was sent to pastor a local church during my UMC days.
I was immediately handed credibility I never earned. My predecessor had burned through so much goodwill that merely showing up, answering emails, returning phone calls, and generally acting like a functioning adult felt revolutionary.
Everything about the church was falling apart. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Even though my first day was July 1, by September it was evident that we needed a capital campaign. That is absolutely not recommended. Normally, you need years to build enough trust to ask people for something that significant. But I was benefiting from the fact that people were relieved things were no longer on fire. And because of that, the congregation was willing to move. We raised the money we needed for desperately needed improvements.

Every community has a kind of emotional economy.
Every leader does too.
Some people make careful deposits.

Others make constant withdrawals:
Every issue is a crisis.
Every inconvenience is an injustice.
Every disagreement is a battle.
Every hill is the hill to die on.

Eventually people stop listening. Not because the concerns aren’t real. It’s just that nobody can live at DEFCON 1 forever.

There was a classmate in seminary.
Now seminary was small, which meant we took many of the same classes together for three years.
He seemed incapable of letting a lecture pass without a challenge.
Every objection began the same way:
“But pruh-fess-uh…”

It didn’t take long to realize that he seemed more interested in hearing himself talk than in learning anything.
Every class.
Every lecture.
At least one “But pruh-fess-uh.”

After a while, whenever those words left his mouth, you could practically feel the collective eye-roll move across the room like a wave in a stadium.

I’m not saying questions are bad. The opposite, in fact.
We should question things.
And I’m certainly not saying you should never disagree with your professor.
But this felt different.
It felt like he enjoyed arguing simply for the sake of arguing.
His interruptions never added anything.
They never enhanced the learning process.
Every point became a debate.
Every lecture became a detour.
Every class became a stage.

There was another classmate who rarely spoke.
But whenever he did, people listened.
Maybe his comments really were more insightful.
Or maybe he had simply learned not to spend his words on everything.

That’s the danger of constantly cashing in your emotional currency.
Eventually people stop paying attention.
You become the person who complains about everything.
You become the person who causes collective eye-rolls simply by showing up.
After a while, whether you’re right or wrong almost becomes irrelevant.
People have learned what to expect:
Another complaint.
Another argument.
Another crisis.
And because we are flawed creatures, people eventually stop asking whether the alarm is justified. They simply stop listening.
Which is, of course, the entire point of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
The tragedy of that story isn’t that the boy lied.
The tragedy is that one day he was telling the truth.
One day there really was a wolf.
One day the danger was real. And by then, nobody came.

Good leadership requires learning the difference between a wolf and a cockroach.
Not every irritation is a wolf.
Not every inconvenience is a crisis.
Not every disagreement deserves a battle.
Because if you spend all your time chasing cockroaches, eventually nobody believes you when you’ve actually found a wolf.

If you move through your community like everything is on fire, eventually people stop listening. Nobody can sustain that level of alarm forever.
And while everyone else is tuning you out, something else is happening.
Your soul never gets to rest.
Because you’ve spent all your energy chasing cockroaches.

Inner peace is not becoming passive.
It’s not pretending hard things do not matter.
It’s learning discernment.

Some things deserve your energy.
Some things deserve your attention.
Some things deserve action.
And some things are just cockroaches.

The goal isn’t to stop caring.
The goal is to care proportionately.
Because there are wolves in this world.
There are things worth fighting for.
Things worth grieving.
Things worth confronting.
Things worth getting angry about.
But if every inconvenience becomes a wolf, eventually we lose the ability to recognize one when it finally appears.
And if every irritation receives our full emotional attention, eventually there’s nothing left for the things that actually deserve it.

Because emotion is currency.
Spend it on everything and eventually you’ll have nothing left when the wolf finally appears.
The older I get, the less wisdom seems to be about adding things.
It seems to be about letting things go.
Most of us already know what matters.
The harder task is learning what doesn’t.