Stealing the Thunder

Stealing the Thunder.  According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the phrase “steal someone’s thunder” is an idiom defined as

: to prevent someone from having success or getting attention, praise, etc., by doing or saying whatever that person was planning to do or say.

I would add, before the person themself can do it.

If you want to know the origin of the phrase Stealing Someone's Thunder, and you know you do, I have voluntarily researched it for you. English dramatist John Dennis was opening a play in London in 1709. To intensify the action, he developed a devise that would create the sound of thunder by vibrating a sheet of metal. The Thunder Machine. Unfortunately, his play was a complete flop, and closed quickly after opening. Shortly thereafter, he attended a production of MacBeth, and found that the other theater company was using his Thunder Machine idea. He was enraged.

“Damn them!” Dennis cried, rising in a violent passion, “they will not let my play run, but they steal my thunder!”  --per wikipedia

Cool story, yeah? Pics from wikipedia.

Have you had an experience where someone Stole Your Thunder? How did you react to that?

I started thinking about this topic the other day when I watched a rerun of an episode of the sitcom Friends.  Quick refresher: friends Ross and Rachel had an on-again-off-again relationship for the full duration of the Friends series. They were strongly tied together, but things never worked out the way that they wanted. In this episode, Rachel had made a life-changing decision to take their young daughter and move to Paris for a huge career opportunity. Things seemed quite final. Wracked with uncertainty, Ross decided that he had to reveal his true feelings before Rachel got on a plane to leave. He resolved that he would lay everything on the line and tell her that he had always loved her, wanted to be with her, and ask if that made any difference about her decision to leave. In their favorite hangout coffee shop, Ross was literally walking up to speak to Rachel when the proprietor of the coffee shop, Gunther stepped up to her first and gave an impassioned speech about his hidden love for Rachel. With Ross standing in the background, mouth agape. Much to our, the audience’s, amusement. Of course, Ross was unable to say his piece, because Gunther had Stolen His Thunder. Catch the episode yourself to see what happened next.

With that in mind, I remembered an experience that I had years ago, when someone swooped in before I had a chance to act. Someone Stole My Thunder. It was a tiny, small moment, but for some reason it stuck with me. It was an interesting peek into human nature, I guess. And made me question my own reaction and feelings.

In the mid 1990’s there was a movement that introduced Random Acts of Kindness. According to usa.com, the idea started in San Francisco and spread throughout the country, reaching peak awareness around 1995. The idea, in a nutshell, was to encourage people to do something nice and unexpected for another person, often a stranger. Basically, be kind, but intentionally so.

In those days, as I scurried around town doing work and running errands, I often swung by a fast food restaurant drive-thru to get a pick-me-up in the middle of the day. Not so much now, but back then, it was pretty routine for me. One day, as I sat in the drive-thru line waiting my turn to order, I had a sudden inspiration. I decided to perform a Random Act of Kindness by paying for the food and drink order for the car behind me in line. My mind went into high gear as I figured out the mechanics. I reasoned that by the time I drove to the window to pay for my order, the car in back should have placed their order, so I would be able to tell the cashier to add their bill to mine. I did a quick check in the rearview mirror to make sure that the car behind me looked like a regular family who would place a normal order, you know, not like an order for 20 people in an office or anything. I deduced that it seemed safe to take on their bill. I practiced my explanation so I would be able to convey my message to the cashier simply and succinctly.

As the drive-thru line advanced, armed with my credit card and my sense of purpose, I drove up to the payment window. Before I could get a word out of my mouth, the cashier excitedly said, “Guess what! The car in front of you already paid for your order!”

I was dumbfounded. What??? No, that’s not right. No. I’m paying for this order, and another one. What do you mean?  Huh???? I was caught completely off-guard.

I’m sure that the cashier thought that I was ‘slow’, because I kept stammering, clouded in confusion. The car in front of me had Stolen My Thunder. I went ahead and paid for the car behind me, as was the plan. But, I had lost that sense of satisfaction of doing a Random Act of Kindness. Someone had beaten me to it. Undermined my plan. Diminished MY act of kindness.

That’s how I felt. Isn’t that ridiculous? We were all doing nice things for one another, but I felt gypped, because someone else stepped in first. Shouldn’t I have laughed and accepted the favor graciously? Shouldn’t I have marveled at the kindness of strangers? It goes without saying that the person in front did not know that they were beating me to the punch, stepping on my toes, etc. They were just being nice. So, the negative feelings were within me, and only me.  I mean, what are the odds that someone else would offer to do a Random Act of Kindness in the exact same place as me at the exact same time? Had I been focusing too much on my own feel-good moment, instead of showing genuine concern for another human being? Is a good deed still a good deed if you do it for selfish reasons? Was I perhaps meant to learn a lesson? Arghhhh. So. Many. Questions.

What say you about this odd story? Did someone ever Steal Your Thunder? Or, have you done that to another person? How did all that work out? Also, do you have any Random Acts of Kindness stories to share? Please, do tell.