Let’s say someone made multiple derogatory comments about your religious group, asked you to do favors under a tight deadline that you delivered and that they then ignored, made a promise to you they then violated and informed you of in a cc in an unrelated email?  Let’s say the success of your fledgling nonprofit organization was in some way dependent on this person and that the broken promise related to the very existence of that outfit.

Few would probably blame you for being upset, hurt, angry or all of the above.  The question is, what would Gandhi do?  The other question is: what would Bruce Lee do?

I wrestled with these questions for almost a week.  It was not an easy wrestling match.  In the end I decided that Gandhi and Bruce Lee would do the same thing.  Take a minimalist approach that deflects action back on the other party.  Responding to the cc’d email that informed me he had no intention of keeping his promise to the organization I wrote: don’t worry about it.

It didn’t take long for him to put on his clown costume and begin capering.  But I’m not worried about it.