Originally posted on Facebook HERE
Well… we’re not in Arizona anymore. Back home in Wisconsin today. I’ve been thinking about people this week. Just in general, I guess - what it’s like interacting with other people every day. And, how fragile our lives really are, as well. Our room didn’t allow much time for any individual space this past week. We’re used to having individual space, too - not just at home, but for most vacations as well. I’m up a couple hours before my wife is on most days, and a room with one king size bed and no other rooms besides the bathroom isn’t ideal for that. So, I gotta kinda try to sneak out and find another place in the hotel to read and write and do the stuff I usually do in the morning. Not a huge deal, but eventually she winds up getting up earlier than she would if I didn’t have to go in and out a bunch of times. Then, we often don’t agree on what we want to do or when we want to do it, either. Or even if we want to do it at all, I guess. Sometimes we get a little shitty with each other. I see and hear negative tones in people’s conversations all the time. No matter what the relationship is, who it’s with, or how much you love someone - there will be times they’re gonna piss you off. You will be irritated at some point, it’s inevitable. I pay a lot of attention to how things are said, I guess. I’m not sure where I heard this, but years ago I remember hearing someone say “you can say just about anything to anyone if you do it with a smile on your face”. And little things can be said with love or disdain. I swear, the longer you know someone the easier it is to let your tone slip into the negative. Q: “Did you put the car keys back in the holder?”… A: (sigh - shaking head, sticking out tongue) “yes, I put the car keys back in the holder”… right? Sometimes small moments of disdain build up over time and start to create real problems. Resentment, even hatred, depending on what is being said, how often it’s being said, and exactly how it’s being said. I think these types of things are what eventually breaks up a lot of friendships, relationships, partnerships and businesses. So, the older I get the more I try to catch myself when I’m doing it (and we all do this, too). And I’ll bring it up if I’m too often the recipient of being spoken to this way. Because there’s usually a deeper issue going on that will never be addressed if it isn’t brought up at some point. And, our lives are so fragile, really. We have such a brief amount of time on the planet. Why can’t we try to be as nice as possible to each other as much as possible? We got in a car accident when we were in Arizona, right in the middle of the week. Traffic slowed extremely quickly on a highway and I couldn’t stop in time and rear ended the guy in front of me. It’s the first accident I’ve had while driving in so long I don’t even remember the last one, but I would have been really young - 30/40 years ago? Anyway - when you have an accident like that, you never know what the person on the other side is going to be like. We pulled over, and got out - and in this case the other guy was great to deal with. But he could have come out hot, right? “What the hell are you doing? Look at my car! You idiot moron galoot!”, etc, etc, etc… I was very thankful he was a super nice guy. It was a small accident, by the time our vehicle hit him we weren’t going very fast at all. But - while we were on the side of the road, a couple minutes later - there was a much bigger accident right in front of us. A semi had to slam on his brakes due to another quick slowdown - there was a pickup and a van behind him - and coming in hot was another large pickup towing a fifth wheel. The first pickup was veering left in an attempt to miss the semi. The fifth wheel guy hit them and sent them careening into the median, then crushed the van totally when they hit it and pushed it into the semi. Going maybe 40mph? It all happens so fast, right? There were injuries in that accident, thankfully no deaths. But really - had that accident happened in a slightly different position we could have been seriously injured or killed. And this week at work, I’m dealing with the passing of several people I’ve known for years. One of them was younger than me. And as I reflect on all this from what I wrote above, my take is this: I do what I can to stay as healthy as I can both mentally and physically. I try to be as kind as I can in every situation. I watch not only what I say, but how I say it. I am grateful for every moment I have. I will use the time I have to help other people in their journey in any way I can, whenever I can. I am in touch with my source, with unconditional love, and I bring that presence into everything I do as much as I possibly can. I have a lot of work to do in all those areas, but every day I’m getting better because I actively work at it. I really hope you feel this way, too. It’s the only way I know to live.
2 Comments
Such truth in the subject of tone when it comes to a question that can be either positive, neutral or negative (“snarky” is the word I like). (0;
Makes me wonder about the statement I hear often that email isn’t a good way to communicate because you can’t discern tone…and yet, readers love books. Isn’t it the same reading? Perhaps if we approached written communication with the perception of positive (unless the subject lets us know it’s not), perhaps if we came to the email as if the person has good intentions, as if they want to have a conversation with us that will inform, encourage, invoke inspiration or otherwise, just maybe we would find email more acceptable.
So I consider my own reaction and approach to any method of communication as well, when I have not received it with curiosity. How important it is when listening (or reading) to come at it with the intent to understand instead of answer. Understanding not only the words, but the person they come from.
Thanks for the reminder Dave!
Thanks for reading and replying. Had a situation recently where someone came at me pretty hard in a setting with other people involved. Most of the other people were amazed at how I handled it – because it was really unjustified. Most of the other people were pretty angry about it. But I can’t control that person’s outburst. I can only control my response. I’m reading the book “Let Them” right now, which really helped me here. Let them be a big jerk. Let me just do what I think is the right thing. You’ll never get everyone to go along, but you don’t have to let it bother you, either – because in those situations, we really have no control.