A deeper level of being other-centered—of forgetting or
minimizing self—is the ability to not take everything personal.
We are used to automatically connecting the taking of things
personally with being offended.
But there’s another, different, level: that of always
attributing all outcomes and people’s reactions and behaviors to
ourselves.
What if, instead, we were able to perceive other people’s
actions as sincerely their problem? (Again, making sure we are not
simply self-centeredly blaming and redirecting. We are assuming here that we’ve
already honestly examined ourselves).
How much of life is invested in:
Wondering what we may have done wrong
(mind-reading)?
Improving or strengthening relationships that simply are not
ever going to improve or strengthen, no matter what we do or don’t do?
Constantly jumping through ever-changing hoops to bring
about a new reaction from someone or instill a new attitude in them?
Now, I’m talking here about situations in which we take
someone’s response (or lack thereof) to us, and instead of getting offended
by it, we become frustrated, sad
or feel misunderstood. We do not blame their interaction or lack thereof on
them; we redirect that blame upon
ourselves.
What follows then is attempts on our part at reconciliation:
We make every effort to show up at family gatherings.
We think, and re-think, how we can be when we are in this
person’s presence, so as never to offend.
We live in a world that coddles everyone else because, in
our self-centeredness, we have convinced ourselves that the lack of
relationship or less-than-ideal relationship is entirely our fault.
This is another form of self-centeredness—thinking that we
are the root and reason for how everything transpires around us.
True other-centeredness, however, does not only mean to have
compassion for, take interest in, help and listen to others.
True other-centeredness
also does not play the martyr:
So when we attempt to love other people and they do not
respond in kind...
When we attempt to turn over a new leaf in a relationship—allowing
bygones to be bygones—and others cannot or will not do the same...
Then true other-centeredness holds the other person accountable for their
choice.
True other-centeredness acknowledges our desires and actual attempts
for a better situation, and the other person’s disinterest.
True other-centeredness objectively looks at the facts, i.e. faces
reality.
I have relationships with people that haven’t changed in 50 years.
And throughout the decades, my striving to make those relationships closer or
stronger have come to naught.
Since these relationships haven’t, and obviously aren’t,
going to change based on my efforts, the only thing remaining then to change is
how I choose to go forward:
First, to see that I have indeed done everything to elicit a
positive transformation in a relationship...
And second, my attitude when no transformation results. And
that attitude is this: stop focusing on the few people who do not want to “go
there” with me and instead commit fully to those who do and who, in fact, already
are.
The squeaky wheel really will get all of our oil if we let
it.
While we may have many excellent friendships and
connections with people, why is it that we allow the handful of people in our
life who simply aren’t invested in progressing or engaging with us to be the
fly in our ointment?
Often it is because they are biologically connected to us.
But as the saying goes, “You can’t pick your family, but you can pick your
friends.”
As Christians, we need to embrace and accept that other Christians are
our real family.
Yesterday I had the completion of an epiphany that has been coming to me in
bits and pieces over the past six months.
After a year’s long--and futile--deep-dive into one-on-one
relationship tweaking with certain individuals, I received in the mail an
exceedingly thoughtful birthday gift sent from dear friends overseas, and,
later in the evening, a long, warm and genuine email from a Christian sister in
Chicago.
It dawned on me that while I have been investing so deeply
in dead-end relationships, I was minimizing, or taking for granted and
under-appreciating, the lovingly reciprocated and respectfully-established relationships
that
already do exist.
Yesterday, it became clear that my approach to stagnant or
barely-there “relationships” has been self-centered in that I have been
allocating time, energy, effort and mental anguish to people who simply do not
want interaction with me.
They may not even be mean-spirited in this, but they simply
are absolutely content with things as they are. They don’t want closeness. They
don’t want friendship. They don’t’ want to meet for coffee once a month. They
have no ambition to make the relationship with me anything other than what it
is.
That is a harsh reality.
But we have to understand how our insistence upon something
changing that is never going to change only hurts the joy and interaction we
experience with those people who already are intentionally in our lives and
who sincerely desire to be.
We must learn, in other-centeredness, to give up our
unrealistic and maybe even selfish desires for other people, and instead turn
to those who, voluntarily and of their own free will, do love us in word and
deed.
This is not to say we form a bad attitude or cold shoulder towards
others. That would only constitute the sin of offense that is to have been
gotten over already. We simply go forward, allowing others to live as they wish
to live—without our cajoling or being a pest. We do the healthy thing of
showing up when we must and being there when we must, without any expectations.
Thus, we free ourselves of these often deeply ingrained
“shoulds” of connection, and free the other person from them as well.
The harsh reality is lessened once we empathetically understand
that
this is what these individuals want.
Certainly we are always there if people change their mind.
But in the meantime, I have decided to stop beating myself up for past
infractions that I am not allowed to reconcile and for current shortcomings
that others may feel are insurmountable to being in a relationship with me.
In that confidence, I go forward in the mutual affection
shared with those who do want kinship with me and who are
already living it out.
These are the relationships that are “a good measure,
pressed down, shaken together and running over” (Luke 6:38) because both
parties desire it; both parties are blessed in it and both parties know it.
I am humbled and a bit ashamed to think how little I revered
the wonderful friends and Christian family I have because I was so focused on
other relationships that I thought I could fix.
It is to these loving souls I now turn in full attention and
affiliation, with the prayer that our “love may abound more and more in
knowledge and depth of insight” (Philippians 1:9), thanking God every time I
remember you (Philippians 1:3).
Copyright Barb Harwood
“A friend loves at all times,
And a brother is born for adversity.” Proverbs 17:17
“There is an appointed time for everything.
And there is a time for every event under heaven—”
Ecclesiastes 3:1
“A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
A time to keep and a time to throw away
A time to tear apart and a time to sew together.”
Ecclesiastes 3:5b-7a
“Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?”
Amos 3:3
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