I’m trying hard to spend less time focused on my phone when so much of it is not helpful or healthful, but occasionally a friend will share a posting that proves more than worth the time investment. I received just such a gift a few days ago which began with: “Children often say just what we need to hear!”
A group of children aged four to eight was asked, “What does Love mean?” The answers were broader, deeper, and more profound than anyone could have imagined.
The winner was a four-year-old boy whose next-door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed on his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, “Nothing, I just helped him cry.”
Photo by Patty Brito on Unsplash.com
Imagine the transformative potential in our world today if each of us could muster the sensitivity of this four year old!
While this response certainly deserved to win (although why there should be a “winner,” I’m not sure!), the answer that got lodged in my aging gray matter was profoundly spoken by Nikka, age six: “If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend you hate.”
The term “friend you hate” immediately caught my attention. If you have been following this blog for a while, you may have sensed an overall theme developing recently that was not present in the first few years. My growing concern regarding the clear and frightening division—even hatred—within the residents of this unique and amazing country in which we all are blessed to call home will not let me rest—literally! I am not apologizing for my intense focus on this topic, simply acknowledging it and trusting you will understand.
The first thought that occurred to me as I began to take Nikka’s challenge seriously was that I’m not really sure I “hate” anyone at this point in my journey. Whether that is totally accurate or not, I decided to broaden the challenge to include any person whom I am uncomfortable with, find obnoxious, or plain just don’t like. That definition gives me a much larger list to choose from and begin developing an action plan for!
On the top of my list at this point in time are folks who attempt to shove their agenda—whether it be political or religious—down my throat. They dominate the conversation, trying to browbeat me into agreement rather than engage in a dialogue we might both learn from. Situations where folks pull out a specific piece or verse in the Sacred Text to justify actions that clearly hurt other folks in a variety of ways are particularly difficult for me to deal with.
I have to admit that most of the efforts I have made to have a civil discussion with people like this about our differences haven’t provided helpful resolutions. While a few conversations turned out to be more productive than I expected and we were able to gain some understanding as to why the other person has such strong feelings, mostly the results have been disappointing.
Since dialoging about differences doesn’t seem to “work,” the strategy I’ve been falling back on more and more is totally avoiding these very vocal and fervent ideologues (which isn’t as easy as I thought when you live relatively close or travel in similar circles!). In the situations where we primarily communicate online I’ve learned how to shut off their comments without them knowing it. In a few cases, instead of avoiding each other, we agreed to avoid the controversial topics that we disagreed about. This has served to sidestep outright conflict but at the same time feels like a cheap band-aid. None of these strategies was very satisfying.
Recently when Rita and I went to dinner in the dining hall we were seated near a table of six. One “gentleman” dominated the entire conversation, actually cutting folks off if when they even attempted to make a comment. We were several feet away but were able to hear every word quite clearly! He projected a most informed and all-knowing persona, fully in control of his “classroom”!
After 52 years of marriage it’s amazing how easily and accurately Rita can read me and assess exactly what is going on in my bald head.
“Isn’t it interesting the extent we will go to to compensate for our feelings of insecurity and often unconsciously move to a controlling position?” she simply said, before I even spoke.
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With that simple and succinct statement, I was able to get some perspective and move from not liking this gentleman to not liking his behavior. Separating behavior from personhood is an important concept I have taught folks in my office and workshops for over 40 years but in the midst of my emotional response, it evaded me. Luckily, Rita was there to sensitively nudge me back on course!
I didn’t even speak to the gentleman, but the shift within me was worth celebrating. It reminded me that being more loving can occur in the privacy of our own heart with no visible changes to our behavior or the relationship in question.
The second broad category of folks I sometimes feel uncomfortable around is people who feel the need to tell others about all their accomplishments, former positions, expensive possessions, and extensive education at all the well-known and respected universities. I know it sounds judgmental, but I find folks who show off like this to be quite obnoxious.
As I began to work on how I could be more loving towards this group, I wondered if it would be helpful to start with why or what is it about myself that caused me to label them as obnoxious in the first place? (I have come to realize that asking the right questions, especially of myself, can be more difficult yet more productive in gaining helpful self-insight and consequently identifying an effective long-term action plan.)
I realized that when I’m in the company of folks who have and continue to travel the world, have held Very Important Positions, have a much broader vocabulary, etc., etc., I often feel inadequate. I have definitely felt that way far more often since moving to our new home in this over-55 community than I did back in Mertztown!
I had to ask myself how much of my emotional reaction to hearing about other people’s accomplishments is even driven by their behavior and how much is driven by my own insecurity? In some cases, were they even “showing off” at all or simply relating facts about their life which triggered my own inability to fully accept and celebrate myself?
And in the cases where the person is indeed objectively showing off, Rita’s words about the controlling gentleman at the neighboring table echoed in my head: “Isn’t it interesting the extent we will go to to compensate for our feelings of insecurity?”
Perhaps these “obnoxious” people tooting their own horns were compensating for their own insecurity! I saw that we were probably all in the same boat, operating out of low self-esteem and trying to prop ourselves up by announcing all the external things that we think will prove our worth. But do our accomplishments and achievements really define our true personhood? And do our very efforts to “prove” our value and earn others’ respect actually backfire and create distance instead of acceptance, which is probably what we are really after? All questions worth considering!
A third category of challenging folks for me personally is people who habitually see the glass as half empty, when clearly there is plenty of H2O in the glass for now and a wide variety of opportunities to get more! In counseling we call people like this “yes-but-ters.” No matter what you say to contradict their negative stance, they will counter with “yes, but…”. Instead of looking for the positive, they choose to focus on what’s missing or going wrong. Sometimes they aren’t even upset about real problems and difficulties, but the bad things they think may happen!
For those of you who have been wandering around this amazing and ever-changing Earth as long as I have may remember a European folk tale about a chicken named Henry Penny who is hysterically attempting to convince everyone that “the sky is falling.” If you remember the story, it was actually a single incident in which an acorn happened to hit her on the head that put her on this mission! What was most fascinating for me to learn was that similar stories go back at least 25 centuries! Apparently, it is a timeless human trait to take one negative event and let it color our entire perception of the future.
It seems like I’m encountering a growing number of Henny Penny’s these days which is challenging as I continue to see the glass as half full. Maybe I need to start with trying to understand what it would feel like to be a chicken and out of nowhere get hit square on the head with an acorn falling from 30 feet in the air! A jarring experience to say the least!
Photo by John Bussell on Unsplash.com
My (admittedly limited) success in accepting and “loving” relentlessly pessimistic people has happened when I stopped focusing on and judging their negative behavior and instead listened to their acorn experiences. When I do that, I almost always am able to expand my sympathy and compassion toward them.
If and when it feels appropriate, I then share what gives me hope and a more positive big picture of what is happening, including sharing my own experiences with a Sneaky God who doesn’t promise to protect us from acorns but does promise to be with us no matter the size of the acorn! (The question of whether God promises presence or protection is a fascinating topic I hope to explore in a future post.)
To be honest, I haven’t ever gotten a glass-half-empty person to switch teams permanently, but if I even am able to get them to smile or acknowledge something good that is going on in their life, I consider that a “win”! Perhaps my attempts to brighten their attitude aren’t about changing them so much as they are changing me!
If you’ve read up to this point, first I’d like to thank you for coming this far and then invite you to go one step further by taking up Nikka’s challenge with me, and hopefully together we will grow in our ability to love one another and help to create a growing climate and culture of healing and peace!
QUESTIONS FOR DEEPENING THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
- Why do you think children can so often make such profound observations?
- What is your definition of love?
- What are some of the traits people have that make it difficult for you to love them? What do you think they trigger in you?
- Does loving someone more have to lead to outward changes in behavior or is it worth doing even if it only changes you? Why?
- Can you think of an example in your own life where you successfully made an effort to love someone you found difficult to love? What do you think enabled you to do this?
- Do you find it easier to love difficult people if you know what life experiences contributed to their difficult traits? Is this an approach you use when trying to generate more compassion for them?
- How do you think your life would change if you were able to eliminate or substantially shrink the number of people/groups you “hate”/don’t like?
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