New rule: Family and friends who bring drama to my doorstep will be be fed with a long handled spoon. There comes a time in life, when we realize that our words and actions affect more than just ourselves. From that moment of revelation, you can either choose to elevate and undergird the people in your life. Or, you can be a stressor and pull them down with your self-cented focus. Grant it, some individuals are simply incapable of doing any better, due to their dysfunction or immaturity. But, I am at a place in my life where I am going to have to recommend that folks take the time to work those deficits out, instead of imposing their drama on me. I don't intentionally try to upset people, because one's level of upset is not necessarily contingent upon their level of love. Personally, I don't feel as if you care about me more, if you are up in arms about the trying circumstances in my life.
To be perfectly honest it's not that I am unable, I'm just not willing to engage in that fashion anymore. We've all had those types of relationships. I babied, I coddled, I shouldered and shared other people's stress and problems. In the end, it either of us were made better. My newest question in the midst of someone else's personal turmoil is, "How can I support you in this?" It's amazing how giving someone control over their happenstance can lead them in the direction of taking the helm, and attempting to handle their own business.
I've said all of this at the risk of sounding like a totally apathetic and crappy person. Let me assure that is not the case. During the happy or difficult times of my loved one's lives, I want to be there. I will provide the box of tissue when we laugh until we cry, or we cry until we're dry. I want to share in your victories, as well as your defeats. I just don't want to shoulder them.
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