The question is answered if I embrace the wealthy and look down on people of limited means.
If I am ignored by a waiter in a restaurant and threaten to withhold a tip or “go to the top” I have decided who I want to be.
If snubbed and I retaliate, my actions answer the question.
If I return evil for evil I have decided.
I am constantly revealing who I want to be.
Who I am is the product of thousands-upon-thousands of choices, and more, compounding, forming into habits that build platforms for actions and shape the lenses through which I see and respond to the world.
I will always be who I have always been when I am unthinking, reactive, and act out of entrenched stereotypes.
Until I am available for something different, acknowledge there may exist new and more gracious ways for me to be, I will be who I have always been.
The question, “what kind of person do I want to be?”, demands I take responsibility for myself and my behavior. It’s not the waiter, the line at the bank, the government, a dysfunctional family or unhappy childhood, or whomever a person may choose to blame.
This most helpful and life-changing question is answered in my every-day routines, my attitudes, and interactions.
Definitions vary, but people usually want to be emotionally healthy, or moving in that direction.
How about some tangible goals displaying emotional wellness?
The emotionally well person is a self-starter who is inner-driven and internally-steered. She uses pre-established principles and boundaries to make decisions and is not usually externally steered by family, friends or fads.
The healthy person is no blind follower and nor is he “flying by the seat of his pants.” Even at his most spontaneous, he is living his pre-established principles and goals.
She loves her family but acts as a separate person when necessary and, when necessary, she is able to make unpopular decisions.
He sometimes chooses to spend time alone, time to think, plan, read, write and pray.
He is quick to forgive almost everything but learns to modify or manage trust. He understands that forgiving doesn’t necessarily mean forgetting although there are times and circumstances when it does.
Emotionally well people are able to “hold onto themselves” under pressure and do not lash out or blame others when things go awry.
Emotionally well people are comfortable with their status in life and thus able to impart calmness and comfort to those who appear to be on a constant treadmill in pursuit of wealth, success, or recognition.
“Living from within” can appear as arrogance to those who are tossed and turned by trends and fashions.
In a world of chaos and discord may you and I be part of the solution and not part of the problem. May we not fuel fruitless discussions but rather attempt to be agents of calm and sound reason.
In a world of selfishness and greed may you and I find it in ourselves to be self-aware and generous. May we assist when possible and necessary but may our help be carefully considered so that it is authentic, helpful and empowering help.
In a world of indifference and frequent contempt may you and I be engaged with others and accepting of others. May we learn the art of seeing, validating, and hearing people and loving those whom we may have formerly regarded with indifference had we noticed them at all.
In a world where many people are demanding and entitled, may you and I learn when to give way, to accommodate, to compromise, to yield, and when to stand firm. May we learn the art of repeated healthy responses to unhealthy expectations.
In a world of sarcasm, hurt and rejection may you and I represent hope. May we be people of healing and listening and grace. May you and I learn how to be safe people in an unsafe world.
“Dad, are we normal?” my son asked, bending from his perch on my shoulders, trying to look into my face.
“Why do you ask?” I said, looking up at him while holding his ankles in one hand and feeling his weight swirl to one side.
We did these “walks” around the block almost daily. We’d start out, his five year old body striding out ahead of me, beckoning me to hurry, usually toward the steel climbing equipment on the public school play area. I knew that if the walk was in the evening light was dimming and the alleys between the houses were throwing darker and changing shadows my son would plead tiredness, beg to ride on my shoulders.
I braced for big questions.
Was his question going about the deeper things in life? I wondered in these brief moments if he’d noticed some of the economic disparities that surrounded him. Race? I thought perhaps he’d been exposed to something at school and seen how unusual bi-racial families were in our part of the world. Perhaps he wanted to explore the intricacies of adoption or solo-parenting.
“We have a truck, dad. Everyone has cars. Everyone’s gate works. Ours doesn’t,” he said.
Days of riding on my shoulders are long past…… but the joy has not.
Within each person is a holy place called The Self. It is here, in the deepest recesses of who each of us is, that the human spirit, soul, and intellect meld, forming the powerhouse for who each of us is. And, the subtle art of self-care (“subtle” because there is a delicate difference between being self-caring, selfish, and self-serving) is fundamental to good mental, emotional, and relational health.
Appropriate self-care is neither selfish nor self-indulgent. It is not self-centered-ness. It is not self-serving. It is self-awareness. It’s self-monitoring, with the firm understanding that each person is responsible for the condition of his or her self. Each of us is responsible for how we relate to all others (to neither dominate or be dominated). Each of us is responsible, when it comes to all other adults, for maintaining relationships that exemplify mutuality, respect, and equality.
Part of self-care is the enduring understanding that each person has a voice to be respected, a role to be fulfilled, and callings to be pursued. Every person (every Self) requires room to grow, space apart from others, while at the same time requiring meaningful intimacy and connection with others. The healthy Self is simultaneously connected and separate, underscoring again the subtlety required in the art of self-care.
Finding the opportunity to seek forgiveness, participate in repair or restitution with people whom I have hurt may result in their expressing forgiveness. While hearing such comforting words warms me, self-forgiveness remains difficult.
Do you have similar battles?
I know this is a particular struggle because having known what is right, good, wholesome, I have not always done what is right and good and wholesome. I find this painful to admit and address. Knowing better was hardly helpful.
While it is no excuse, I am aware that I am not too different from many.
When I am feeling down it feels as if my failures speak louder than any successes. Despite the knowledge that “people are more than their actions” shame seeps and runs deep and makes me feel vulnerable and fragile. It can be a physical sensation.
Again, I must ask, do you ever feel this way?
When I am at my best, I can humble myself, accept my imperfections and that I am a forgiven person.
Admitting I am flawed is key to my freedom which leads me to self forgiveness at which point freedom fills my soul.
I’ve been asked a few times why I’m a rideshare driver for Lyft and Uber.
The answers are easy.
It keeps me from spending money at local hardware stores.
I tend to drift into a few, earnestly thinking and believing I am good at fixing things, you know, minor home projects like remodeling the kitchen, adding a bedroom, after decades of knowing otherwise. Truth is, I’m not. I have hardly ever finished a single repair, paint, assemble, project I ever began and I have unused equipment to prove it. I’d rather drive a few hours and make a little cash than buy stuff I end up never using and see it sitting wherever I abandon it until it burns my eyes.
When I drive for Lyft and Uber — yes, New Castle, you have at least one rideshare driver I know of — I get the joy and privilege of meeting people who I would probably never otherwise meet.
Read the car correctly and there are riders who really want to talk and will tell you their life stories, most of which, if well-penned, could be best sellers, even movie franchises. Many riders simply want to rest or catch up on phone time after a very hard day’s work. Some sleep. That’s fine by me. It gives me time to be thankful for all the home-projects I am avoiding and calculate all the money I’m saving by not buying the John Deer foundation digger thing I found most attractive and fully believed I needed a few days ago.
I have long prayed that God would permit me to travel and teach young adult students who are rich in almost everything but money and who live in places I couldn’t find on a map. If I drive hard for a week I can earn enough money to fly anywhere in the world where I’m invited.
Paying my own way means I don’t stretch budgets of campuses in some of the most economically vulnerable and challenged countries on Earth.
My three trips, scheduled before 2024 closes are to Santiago – then home, Accra, Lome, Nairobi, Worcester, – then home. After Thanksgiving, it’s Bujumbura. If I drive it means I can go to such destinations. I think my prayers have been answered.
When I drive for Lyft and Uber I get the joy and privilege of seeing parts of the city of Indianapolis (and Anderson, Muncie, St. Louis, Fort Wayne, Elwood, Madison and Columbus, Indiana) I would never otherwise see, and there is beauty, stunning beauty everywhere, just as there is everywhere on this gorgeous planet.
I like to drive because I meet biblical characters. The woman caught in adultery cried her eyes out in my car one morning before 7am. The 19-year old told me God would never accept or forgive her for what she’d just done and cried all the more when I told her that would be most uncharacteristic of the God I’ve encountered.
I’ve driven men and women to and from all the major hospitals who express overwhelming joy in simply being alive.
When women ride with me and I hear them on their phones negotiating extra hours with three part-time jobs, scheduling care of several children – for their own and for the children of neighbors and friends – while also learning a language in a new country, I want to declare my 2013 Lexus holy ground.
Deep breath now: when 4 young men in their late teens got a ride from an abandoned fast-food parking lot and, after a short while started to tell me their stories and revealed that all had lost a dad, uncle or friend in a violent death, and all had been with someone who was dying, and that there were five weapons in MY car (among the four of them) and when I asked why and almost as one they said WE HAVE TO and I drive off leaving them behind, regretting I could not sit with them and hear more and more and more.
Yes. Long sentence. Full of run-ons, just like the conversation we had in the car.
Lyft? Uber?
It’s beautiful I tell you.
Maybe one day this week I will stay home and paint a room.
If I say I love someone, I will invest the time required to hear what he or she wants to say.
Listening, like love, has no gimmicks, no tricks.
It is expressing genuine interest. It is putting my own concerns aside for a while and entering someone else’s world. It’s rewriting, reshaping, re-writing, nothing I hear. I will listen as if I am appreciating fine, complex, beautiful art, a masterpiece. I will not “listen” as if I’m engaged in a competitive game of verbal tennis. I will listen as one who has much to learn rather than hide behind the covert belief that I’m the one with much to teach.
Such arrogance neither hears, nor listens well, or accurately.
The arrogant listener hears what he or she wants to hear. Arrogance reshapes what’s said into what the listener prefers.
When I think “I”ve heard it all before” I’m not listening.
Listening opens new worlds for the speaker and the listener leading each down a path of brave discovery. It’s a mutual risk.
The loving listener listens to what is said and unsaid, without rearranging either.
The listener enters another’s world, then departs with it untouched, understood, admired, no matter how beautiful, troubled, complex, that world may be.
Illustration by Siggi Berg and used with permission.
My sons, both of them, are in love, each with a woman who’d make any dad proud.
The first time I met Nate’s girlfriend I dressed for the occasion and wore a tie that bears a collaged image of both boys when aged about 12 and 8. Thulani’s head resting on Nate’s and they both have broad smiles. I donned the tie with playful snarkiness declaring, with zero subtlety, exactly where Nate belongs.
Harli visited a few days later and won my heart.
“Open it,” she said handing me a gift.
Treasure fell from the envelope. She’d re-produced the tie with updated images, my sons at 26 and 22, smiling as broadly from another necktie.
On Fathers Day I woke to this text which I publish with Harli’s permission:
“Happy Fathers Day, to a man I idolize. You welcomed me into your family with open arms and you single handedly raised two honest gentlemen that are so lucky and grateful to have you. I hope you enjoy your day!!”
The woman has no idea that my most ardent prayer for my sons was always that they learn how to love and that they be gentlemen.
Thulani met Alaina over a year ago and has gone so far as to purchase a ring. Last Saturday he ordered roses to surround a spot near Bow Street Bridge in New York City’s Central Park. Out for a walk the couple walked by at some distance from the bridge and the flowers caught Alaina’s attention.
“What if they were there for you,” he said.
On his knees, at the bridge, Thulani popped the question. Cameras rolled and the perfect moment of their shared joy was caught for all to see, you and me, and generations yet unborn.
From there the couple headed to a restaurant where forty of their friends waited in a reserved private room to welcome them, and welcome them they did!
Thulani coordinated all of this.
Alaina knew none of it.
I talked with my daughter-to-be the day after the engagement and I got to feel some of her joy.
Yes, I am looking forward to the wedding. No date is yet set. I am looking forward to their complete fulfillment as husband and wife. Truth be told, I can hardly wait to have at least 5 or 6 grandchildren.
I have enjoyed the run up to this event, rehearsing with Thulani, his speech to request Alaina’s parents for her hand in marriage, the design and purchase of the rings, receiving a most gracious text from my son to declare how he had learned about love from how I have loved him….
But, my real joy goes even deeper than all of that, if that is possible.
Try telling someone from my part of the world (Indiana, USA) a bad-weather story.
In seconds you will be interrupted.
No matter how deep the snow, severe the ice storm, or how strong the wind was, your “listener” will trump you.
The “listener” is not listening. He or she is waiting to speak, aching to one-up you, waiting to debate, waiting to win! His bad weather story will dwarf yours, no doubt about it.
It’s not a conversation.
It’s a duel!
I am convinced that in Indiana one cannot have one’s own weather and let it be.
This phenomenon is not restricted to weather-talk or to Indiana. Try telling friends in South Africa about your game reserve experience. In split seconds you will be told a more intense, more dramatic event that occurred in another better, bigger, greater game reserve than the one you enjoyed. Other similar topics: the best curry, the worst flying experience, the worst customer service, lost luggage tales, a recent surgery or illness.
Really listening, being present for each other, takes love and discipline. It takes the ability to hold our tongues if we want to enter the world and the experience of another. The temptation to crowd out that world with our own (bigger, better) material can be very strong.
Being present for each other is a gift.
Hold your tongue, give liberally.
I’m enjoying this memoir very much and commend it to you.
difficultrelationships.com 