I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath. ~ David Lynch

Don’t Make it About You!

Someone said something to me while visiting during my recovery that I thought was really profound. When you come to visit someone recovering they said, never bring them anything that creates stress or an obligation. She was responding to the fact that several people had brought me plants. Now in my case, it wasn’t a big deal, I already have a tiny patio garden and a couple extra plants was no significant burden, but the point was valid. I love that people have good intentions, but I hate that people don’t stop and think about the impact of those intentions. My mother is a great example of this, she lives on the East Coast, me, the West Coast for like thirty years now. She refuses to pay attention to the time difference. So much so that I’m forced to turn my ringer off every night because if not, I’m liable to get a call or text ridiculously early in the morning, for my birthday recently she texted at 4:15AM. She’s not alone, my father texted me a blank text yesterday at 4:42AM. Again, the intention of a birthday text is to wish someone happy birthday, a good intention, but the reality is possibly waking that person up at 4AM.

This is a common sitcom trope, the dad goes out an buys the mom a new riding mower for her birthday because she wants one, or she buys him a spa gift certificate knowing he won’t use and she will get to go in his place.

During my recovery I dealt with this a lot, a bunch of really wonderful people were incredibly helpful to me. But often, in their desire to do something nice they had the complete opposite impact. I’m a single guy, I live alone and while recovering my appetite wasn’t very large. People would continually ask, what food can I bring you, I’d say nothing, but they would show up with a bag of fruit/vegetables or take out. If I asked for an apple from the store, they would bring three. All much appreciated, however it meant a lot of food went bad and I really hate wasting food, no doubt related to as a kid, not having food to waste.

So it’s a simple message tonight, please do nice things for people, we want to show the people we care for, that we care for them. But take the extra step of thinking about what impact will that action have, will it create an obligation or end up having the opposite impact that you desire? We all live busy hectic lives and we’re trying to check off our to do lists, so often if it’s a gift or a gesture we do it quickly to get the list done. Slow down my friends, take a breath, think a little more deeply about it and you’ll create more happy days my friends. ~ Rev Kane