In the Old Testament, the people were taught, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. In my younger days, this seemed to give me silent permission to be mean to anyone who was mean to me. It made sense, if you hit me, I get to hit you back - If you talk trash about me, I can talk trash about you. To me, that is an example of fighting fire with fire. Well, I have found out that when you fight fire with fire, you just get a big, destructive sweltering fire! This never brought me peace. I then adopted the theory of fighting fire with water.
As I awkwardly tried to practice this theory, I ran across Steven Covey’s 7 Habit that seemed to help describe this in a more eloquent way, “Seek to understand, then be understood.” I find this to be much more challenging, yet in the long run, much more rewarding.
When someone is in your face, literally screaming and accusing you, it’s difficult to look at them calmly, realizing that their anger is not about you, but about some inadequacy they feel, or weakness in themselves that is over-whelming to them.
In general, people are most impatient with other people when it involves their own personal weaknesses. When you are guilty of an action or thought, suddenly it’s everywhere you look! I can’t tell you how many times I have heard of someone in the news that condemns others about illegal or immoral actions only to find out later that they are guilty of the same, if not worse, action.
What you notice in others, seem to be what you are judging about yourself.
I'm always curious about the people I notice. I know that Haley notices thin people. Kellie, do you notice all of the pregnant people? I would like to say that I notice the well-balanced, secure, happy, beautiful people. Yeah, that's it!
That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
1 comment:
Well great insight! More often now I sure notice pregnant people and women with babies.
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