It's almost Summer. Time to simplify our lives. And the opportunity as well. The only way I know to simplify my own life is to simplify my emotions.
So this morning - in a free pastiche - let me illustrate emotion simplification in three ways.
My hope is that at least one of the three will work for you. In fact, in the spirit of simplification, just take one - play with it - make it yours. First, security and insecurity. Second, casual interpersonal encounters. Third, complements and confidence.
Let's begin with security and insecurity.
Sometimes our major security issues in life are really insecurity issues. I think of one friend in particular.
He's very successful. Not only that, he's hard-working, high-principled, and, in many ways, unselfish. If you have a problem, he'll go out of his way to help you. But for some strange reason, when he himself has a problem, he finds a way to make it worse. For one thing, he has trouble with criticism. He doesn't rise above it or even learn from it. In fact, he takes every word of criticism as a personal assault. On the surface, it's hard to figure. Things are going well in his life. But deep down he's insecure.
One particular woman in his office has been giving him trouble lately. She is outspoken and opinionated and rarely agrees with his ideas. She doesn't threaten his job. She's in a different department and lower on the corporate ladder. He rarely sees her more than a couple of times a week. The problem is he can't get her out of his mind. So he has declared war. His memos are like heat-seeking missiles. He works on them until three in the morning.
My friend is so obsessed with this woman that he has finally provoked his co-workers' concern. They support him on most things, but they're starting to worry about his behavior-and his memos. "This is overkill," they say. "Forget her. You'll get most of what you want. Lighten up." As far as he's concerned, the difference between him and them is that he cares more about the company than they do. As they see it, he is losing his perspective. It's as if, to protect against shoplifting, he would be willing to bankrupt the store.
But he won't give in, and his stubbornness has cost him allies. People are beginning to come to her defense, some of them in his own department. In his search for honest ground, he has discovered quicksand. The more he struggles, the deeper he sinks.
In some ways his life reminds me of American foreign policy. Do you remember when Vietnam was our number one security risk? For ten years we fought to hold a beachhead there against Communist aggression. We spent fifty thousand lives and billions of dollars. It doesn't really matter why we failed. Perhaps we didn't have the will to win, as some people say. Or maybe we never really had a chance. What matters is that shortly after we stopped fighting for Vietnam, it disappeared from the map, not the world map but the map of our consciousness and concern. Instead of being thrown into dire peril for having failed in our mission, once we left Vietnam it ceased to be a security risk almost overnight. Judging from recent policy in Latin America, we have yet to learn the lesson of Vietnam. Neither has my friend. The more he struggles with his problems, the more stuck he gets.
The same is true of me. Most of my security issues are insecurity issues. When someone confronts me, I am tempted to answer according to my fears. A single ounce of confidence would probably work the cure, but instead I too thrash about in quicksand.
As for my friend, he is starting to cool off. But still he can't let go. This will be hard for him. He believes he is right. As he sees it, to back off now would be not only admitting defeat but also abandoning the truth.
Admittedly, I know only his side of the story. But, even playing devil's advocate, it seems that he may in fact be right. Even so, let's say he does prove his point. A full-scale confrontation with this woman, right now anyway, would clearly serve neither him nor his company. It would only divert everyone's energy from more important tasks. He asked me what I would do. I counseled nonintervention.
We can't play other people's cards, of course. Our own hand is tricky enough. But we can point out that when it comes to self-destruction, they, and only they, hold all the aces.
Here's my second story.
I have a friend who always complains whenever I ask him how he is. "How are you?" I ask, my automatic pilot in perfect repair.
"Terrible. My back is a mess, and last week my neck went out. All of which is only slightly less disconcerting than the bill I just got from my urologist."
Not that he's exaggerating. A youthful sixty in aspiration and energy, he has cut out tennis, which he loves, and he missed his vacation last year, confined to bed with a back that wouldn't work. Even so, when I ask a person how she or he is, I don't really expect an honest answer. "How are you?" is like "Hello," the sort of greeting we offer to passing acquaintances when we are running late for an appointment. So you can imagine my surprise when I ran into this fellow on the street and asked him how he was.
"Fine," he said. I was in a hurry, but this caught me up short. Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, I pulled him into a doorway and said, "What did you say?"
"I'm fine."
"What do you mean you're fine? Last week you had a brace on your neck and today you're walking with a limp."
"Let me tell you something," he replied. "It took me years, but I finally got the message. Whatever may be wrong with me, most people up the ante, protesting that they are worse off than
I am. "If you don't believe me, when someone asks you how you are, just dare say 'My neck hurts' or 'My back aches.' Chances are you won't get commiseration; you'll get one-upmanship. You'll have to suffer through hearing about the other person's neck, back, anything that directs attention and sympathy to him. It's apparently reflexive, this tendency to compete rather than empathize. So I've made up my mind. Starting this week, when I'm asked how I am, I'm going to say 'Fine.'"
"What about your neck brace?" I asked.
"I no longer wear my neck brace in public because I'm tired of hearing tales of other necks, other joints. From this day on, as far as the world is concerned, I'm fine."
Having given up competing with others over pain, he reversed field entirely. Somehow he had managed to find a way to suffer other people's pain without compounding his own. After all, pain is a popular subject only when we are speaking about ourselves. You may see me limp a bit, but I am not going to tell you more than you want to know about my sciatica,
"All this got me thinking," he said. "You know my doctors never complain about how they feel. It's not their job. Their job is to make others feel better. And it's not a bad job, when you think about it. So you know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life? I'm going to empathize with people in pain. I feel that pain. I know how much it hurts. And I know for certain that they have as hard a time as I do getting that across."
"How. are you going to do this?" I asked.
"Never again am I going to say 'How are you?' when I don't really want to know. And when I do want to know, I'm going to ask 'Are you okay?' For some reason, when you put it that way, people tend to be honest. And when they start to tell me how bad off they are, I'm not going to compete with them, just listen, even if they're better off than I am. And then I will tell them how terrible it sounds. And they will feel a little better."
"What about you?" I asked.
"I will feel a little better too."
I tried this out last week. It turns out that most people say they are fine when you ask "How are you?" But if you ask them "Are you okay?," if they're not, they unload.
Even as a minister I can take only a certain amount of this; so I choose my shots. But it's still a funny thing. When I slip and say, "How are you?" and someone tells me the truth, part of me resents the intrusion. Yet when I ask "Are you okay?" and someone tells me that she's not, for some odd reason I want to know why.
That's my second story. Here is my third.
Have you ever received a compliment you didn't deserve? I've made a career of it. Among other things, it has spared me from being a perfectionist. For me, it started early. My parents were indiscriminate. It's not a bad thing. With every compliment, they were saying that they loved me. Once I knew that they loved me, it wasn't so bad being spanked.
Most of us have sense enough to doubt ourselves. But if everyone else doubts us, we are lost. The great thing about compliments is that they give us another chance. They inspire us to try things again, even dare to do them better.
Criticism can be helpful, but often it isn't. I notice this often in meetings.
Those of us in our Future Planning Meeting, this afternoon, might ponder this. Believe me - it will make the meeting far more productive. Someone risks a new thought, and people jockey to be first in pointing out "We've tried that before" or "It simply won't fly." So much for new ideas. We learn this trick in school. Criticism is a cheap way to establish superiority. Somebody else does the work. Our job is to rip it apart.
Some criticism is justified, of course. And not every compliment is complimentary. For future reference, I offer this brief vestiary.
Begin with the senatorial compliment. Like a skunk it waves its tail before it spews. "I want to begin by thanking my distinguished colleague, the senior senator from the great state of North Carolina...."
And then there is the Social Register compliment, catty condescension aimed in a chilly tone at the hat or coat or dress of some "inferior."
In marriages, there is the backhanded compliment. ("Dinner was unusually good tonight, dear.") This is the praying mantis of compliments. After making love it bites off the head of its mate.
Not to forget the compassionate compliment. This is the ostrich of compliments. We reserve it for people who are dying. We don't know what to say, so we tell them how wonderful they look.
But what about the real thing? Apparently we think that whenever we honestly praise another, we diminish ourselves. Is someone keeping tabs? If I compliment you, do I lose a point and you score one? Are we superior to people whom we criticize, and inferior to those whom we praise? In fact, the opposite may be true. When we pour out compliments, our cups run over. But when we try to save every drop of our precious nectar of praise, it evaporates, and soon our cups are dry. Ironically, to go back to my first point, a readiness to criticize may reflect insecurity. People who are sure of themselves are generally much more capable of complimenting others than those who need to prove that they are better, smarter, more reasonable, or wise.
If you are confident enough to wish to break the pattern, you might try this: The next time your husband or sister or boss or assistant or fellow church member has a "brilliant" new idea, find something kind to say before you put it down. In part it's a game. No criticism without a word of praise. Find something good about a bad idea and it will change the way you listen. It may even change the way you think. Think about what happens when somebody compliments you: You have two clear choices. Only one of them is correct.
If somebody compliments you, do her a favor. Accept. When she compliments your cooking, don't tell her that the dinner really wasn't all that good. When she thanks you for sending a thoughtful note or visiting her in the hospital, don't tell her it was nothing. It wasn't nothing. It was splendid.
I learned this from my parents. When it comes right down to it, it makes no difference whether we deserve a compliment or not, because each time we are sincerely praised, the person who praises us shares in the pleasure. So enjoy it. And let them enjoy it. Which is simply to say, there is only one proper response to a compliment.
It is "Thank you."
By the way - thank you. Thank you for everything. Amen. I love you God bless you all. Copyright AllSouls 2000.