I’d Rather Not Engage in This Conversation
I want to start with a story.
“Tobi,” Rita said, stroking my hand lovingly, “where we’re going tonight, the people are normal. They don’t know what you do for work, nor are they looking for a life coaching session. Let’s just have a nice evening and go to the balcony if it gets too much for you, alright?”
We were on our way to a birthday party for one of my wife’s colleagues, and whenever I’m about to meet new people, Rita sits me down for a briefing on how I am to behave.
If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I try very hard to abide by the social rules Rita’s set for me. On some days, it works wonderfully. But not that day. Have you ever been to one of those parties where, despite the spacious living room, the guests choose to crowd the tiny kitchen? This was one of them! As soon as I enthusiastically said, “Good evening,” a number of faces stared back in confusion, and I felt the first flickers of irritation. Someone smiled nervously. Someone else gave me a tentative nod of the head. Oh, not good, I thought to myself.
“Darling,” I whispered in irritation, “is this your colleague’s thirtieth birthday, or a funeral dinner for an estranged rich uncle?”
Rita smiled and pushed me in the direction of the prawn cocktail and paper plates.
As I spooned a little of the funeral spread (sorry, I meant the party snacks) onto my plate, I heard someone mumble. “Do you mind being a little careful?” the man said. “I went to the doctor last week and had a ganglion on my foot shaved off. It’s still bleeding now. Just didn’t want you to step on it.”
“By their voice and language, you will recognize them,” the ancient philosophers wrote. People who are unsuccessful talk about problems and project them onto other people; successful people talk about ideas and goals.
There he was before me—a man who defined himself through his medical ailments. An energy vampire! The hair on my arms stood up, and my palms started to sweat (yes, in those days, energy vampires still provoked a physical reaction). Since I hadn’t reached the bar for an icy drink that could temporarily deactivate my mirror neurons with a brain freeze, I resorted to my ultimate energy-vampire-banishing phrase.
“I’d rather not engage in this conversation,” I said, with a friendly smile.
Honestly? A party with prawn cocktail—that I could overlook easily, because of my love for my wife. But engaging with energy vampires in my spare time? No, can’t do.
As sympathetic “oohs” and “aahs” began to whiz by on all sides, Rita shot me a pleading look. Please, don’t say anything. All attention in the kitchen was focused on the partygoer and his foot. And the breath-taking spectacle went even further—because now, everyone wanted to be sicker than the next person, or knew someone else who was. This birthday party soon turned into a pity party. And in the middle of it all, I was trapped, bathed in sweat.
Looking around the kitchen in search of salvation, I found a pen on the fridge and wrote “0800/1110111” on the magnet notepad. If you dial this number in Germany, you’ll find a phone counselor on the other end. Laugh all you want, but that’s exactly what I did: I referred the bunch of them to a tele-therapist.
I simply refuse to deal with this kind of scenario—particularly in my spare time. I want to maintain my sanity and salvage my precious mirror neurons.
We’ve now arrived at an important point. Many energy vampires have a keenly practiced hobby, which is that they are only too happy to engage with the topic of illness. Do you know this kind of people—ones who have a backache on Monday, a toothache on Tuesday, a stomachache on Wednesday, and a headache on Thursday? Hopefully, you’ve already added these splendid specimens on your list of people to avoid. If not, add them now. There are websites, publications, and programs that cater exclusively to this particular brand of energy vampires. There are people who obsess over WebMD, diagnosing themselves afresh with every new ache or twinge. These are the people who can reel off twenty different types of headache if you wake them up at night—and for every type of headache, of course, there is a special remedy. Whole sectors of business make their money off this hysteria.
We must guard ourselves and our mirror neurons like hawks. But be warned: it’s no easy task, and even I am not always able to manage it. Recently, I returned from a keynote speech for a big international fashion brand. I was under the weather, so at the Frankfurt airport I hot-footed it to a pharmacy to buy something for my burgeoning cold. After serving me politely, the pharmacist asked, “Do you know that ticks are on the rise?”
“What?” I asked.
“Ticks are on the rise,” the lady repeated, in hushed tones. She handed me a small brochure. “Do you have children with you? We’re in a pandemic area.”
“A what area?” I asked myself. As I boarded the suburban train to the city center, my mirror neurons feeling tired and congested, this wonderful publication was in no small part to blame. The airport employee sitting across from me stared in disbelief at the brochure’s title page.
I sat on the train and, for the first time in my life, devoted myself to the subject of ticks. A member of the arachnid family, these constantly multiplying creatures lurk perpetually in every shrub and wait for their only chance of continued survival: digging their claws into us and infecting us with meningitis. This happened precisely 234 times in Europe last year. For me, one thing was clear: my careless, unsuspecting attitude had to end, not least to protect my little son. My home state, Hesse, was circled red in the map. Red! That meant a lot of ticks. I flicked through the pamphlet in panic. There had to be a solution! On the last page, there it was: for 29.99 euros, one could buy a tick repellent, spray it on the ankles twice a day, and the little critters would stay away.
Exactly seventeen minutes after purchasing the cold medicine in the pharmacy at the airport, I found myself anxiously entering another branch of the chain at the main train station. “One tick spray,” I heard myself cough.
“With pleasure,” said the clerk—who looked eerily similar to the pharmacist from the airport, another trick of the mirror neurons.
Two hours later, I was home. I lowered the blinds and sat alone at the table, sprayed and stinking (for as we all know, the more of a remedy you use, the more effective it is).
“Tobi, what on earth happened?” my wife asked. “Why would you close the blinds in the middle of the day?”
“We’re at war, my darling. 234 Europeans have died in misery,” I whispered, in a panicked voice.
Now comes one of the reasons why I love my wife so much. Calmly, she took a calculator and divided 500 million by 234. On this basis, the risk of dying from a tick bite in Europe lies at one in just over two million. I rolled up the blinds and placed the vial of chemicals in the hazardous waste. It’s vital to be mindful about the messages you let in. Think carefully about the books you engage with, the news you read, and the TV programs you watch. When it comes to someone like my Aunt Hilda, there’s no point asking how she is: all you need to know is in the “bio-weather” report. Toothache is rife in the north, backache in the south, and allergies in the west.
Biowetter = Bioweather, Zahnschmerzen = Toothache, Allergie = Allergies, Bauchschmerzen = Stomachsche, Rückenschmerzen = Back Pain
List five varieties of energy-vampire media that you consume or have consumed: