I'm a people watcher. I like doing that. But it can be disappointing sometimes. It's very clear that the standard mode of thinking for just about everyone is "Me." Think about it.
You're shopping in a grocery store, pushing a cart, gathering what you need. You find the area of something you need and start searching for a particular thing. Do you think, "I'll put my cart here, where it's most convenient for me," or do you think, "I'll put my cart over here, where it's out of other people's way"? I'm driving down the road, and the light is red up ahead, and I'm hoping to get to the left turn lane before the left turn light turns green, but the guy in front of me is slowing. Is he thinking, "I'm watching the traffic around me, trying to make the driving experience for those around me more pleasant" or is he thinking, "Hey, the light is red ... I don't have to hurry"? You're having a discussion with your spouse and they aren't giving you what you think they should. Are you thinking, "They're not giving me what I need" or are you wondering, "Am I giving them what they need?"
It's such an easy, natural thing. A fellow I knew was excited about the woman he hoped to marry. "I think she'll bring all sorts of good things to my life." "But," I asked him, "will you bring all sorts of good things to her life?" We just don't often think down those lines. We're better at, "I don't like that; I wish they wouldn't do that to me" than "What do I like ... I want to go do that for others." Thinking about what I need is easy. Looking around and finding what people need in order to supply it isn't as easy. And, yet, it's our calling. "Love your neighbor as yourself."
5 comments:
I can really relate to your first example (being the primary food-shopper in our household). I have noticed it is particularly bad among senior citizens, who by their age really should have sufficient practice expressing consideration towards others. Just as old men should know how to drive and park their cars after fifty years of driving. And homeowners should know their barking dog disturbs their neighbors. And so on and so on. (Don’t even get me started about people on their cell phones!)
One time long ago, when my husband and I were living in our first apartment, the visiting girlfriend of the young male resident of the apartment across from us took his (very) large dog outside for a “walk.” The dog left a present in the middle of the walkway between our mutual apartments, which she did not clean up. A short time later, when I ran into her, I pointed it out to her, to which she replied, “I don’t like you saying that!” To this day, forty-five years later, my husband and I regularly speak that phrase (jokingly) to one another--for a good laugh, but mostly to emphasize exactly how not to respond in love towards others.
Much of what you highlight is the Golden Rule once again. “Treat others as you wish to be treated.” And those selfless “lines of thinking” are so necessary in the nurturing relationship that is marriage, as you point out, where opportunities and tendencies to focus on one’s own needs and desires abound--which, if indulged by even one spouse on a regular basis, will kill love as sure as anything.
Just to clarify: I am sensitive to the reality that senior citizens might have issues with mobility, strength, reflexes, etc., that might cause them to be less than perfectly considerate in all their actions. So I am in fact patient and tolerant during the aforementioned incidences. I know from personal experience that we don’t always behave as we intend to, and we can do the very things we normally despise in others. May God keep me sensitive and responsive to those around me, even as I lose my own faculties!
I agree with what you say here, though I take exception to the slowing down for the red light. Is it better and safer for me to speed up to the red light just so I don't slightly inconvenience the tailgater behind me, or coast to a stop, slightly inconveniencing the tailgater behind me who will also have to stop at the same light?
I wasn't talking about safety, David. I was talking about the "me" line of thinking. Safety, for instance, would be a "we" line. But I DO know that I've encountered times when, say, I'm waiting to turn and a car on the road I'm turning on is going ... really ... slow because, hey, it's a red light. I could have gotten in, but ... couldn't. But the circumstances were examples. I was trying to highlight the type of thinking that EVERYONE does ... and maybe should reconsider.
I heartily agree. We could get back to a high trust society if everyone wasn't thinking only about their best interests.
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