Random Thoughts - Attitude

Today I'm not talking about musical tips, but something that we can apply across the board in our daily lives as well as our careers. Too often, we see someone being celebrated that we feel may not deserve the praise, or the reward. Too often, we let our egos get in the way of our heads and hearts. I just wanted to share something with you that has helped me through the years. It came up in a conversation yesterday.

Had lunch with the delightful Leah Kunkel yesterday and we got around to discussing people in our lives that seem to cause us more problems than we think we need.

Both of us are trying not to hate or resent anyone, as hate is simply an emotional boomerang that comes right back and hits you from behind when you least expect it.

I told her about some advice that my mother had given me years before, that for some reason, I always remember when someone else needs it, but never remember it for myself. Or rarely. I did us this advice on two separate occasions and it was incredible how quickly and how well it worked.

Here’s what happened and what my mother advised: Years ago, I had a friend that needed a place to stay when he lost his lease. He had been great to me when I was going thru a divorce and I wanted to reciprocate. I had this big house and I was on the road, literally three hundred days a year at the time. I was using work as the great anodyne. If I was out there on the road, I wasn’t at home noticing that I had no wife. It seemed to make the pain easier to bear.

Well, the fellow that moved in, a good man, didn’t share my particular household traits. I would come home and there would be dishes in the sink turning into science projects; milk in the fridge that smelled like two hundred year old gym socks; all the plants dead because he didn’t think to water them when they needed it (or ever so far as I could tell). I continually addressed these things to no avail, but the final straw was when I heard from someone that I was belng allowed to stay in the house that he owned. He was the generous one and I was the needy pain in the ass.

I started to resent him profoundly. Speaking to my mother about it, I said that I was beginning to hate him. She admonished me immediately, saying that hate was an ignoble and damaging emotion to create and to carry around. She said that I should bless him. BLESS HIM, I thought. I wanted to choke him. But my mom was pretty sharp, so I said, what do you mean? She said, Ask God to bless him and to place him where he needs to be to learn what he needs to learn and if that is with you, then accept that. If it is someplace else, please accommodate him as you see fit.

So that’s what I did. He was away on vacation and had been for six days. He was due back into my home in two days. I got down on my knees and I actually prayed to God to bless him. Just as my mother had described.

Now I know that you won’t believe this, but within twenty four hours, that fellow called me up and said that he had such a good time on his vacation that he decided to work for the place he was vacationing. He applied for a job and they accepted and he wasn’t coming back. He had his stuff put into storage except for what we shipped to him. He did very well there and has had a grand life and we are still the best of friends, and he never lived in my home again. Amazing, yes?

The only other time that I applied that blessing technique was with an extremely beautiful woman with whom I was in love for over a year. She was definitely damaged, but I thought that I could save her and I also think that she loved me as much as she knew how, but the relationship was killing me. I won’t go into the details but suffice it to say, I got to that place and was again talking to my mother, who again suggested blessing the woman. I did that night. The next day this woman called up and said that she had been offered a job in San Diego, what should she do? TAKE IT I said. Never saw her again. Thank you, Lord, as the devout are wont to say.

The lesson here is a simple one. Wishing someone well only does you good. Wishing someone ill only hurts you. Being judgemental of someone's gifts, or good fortune;  jealous of someone else’s success or talent; resentful of someone's slights only hurts you. Be forgiving of their shortcomings.   Be glad for their talent, their inspiration and their success. Nothing is ever as it seems, and we may not no what a blessing or a curse something really is.  Just keep your own head together by only blessing those around you. It’s really the only way that works. I swear, now back to music on Monday.

Comments

[Elly Wininger]

Just poking around this morning and followed the link from CIYH to your blog. Somehow the mouse knows where to go, because I really needed to hear what you wrote about attitude. Thank you for this wisdom, and I have a feeling that there is more than meets the mouse here...I'll be back.
~Elly