I returned on Sunday from a vacation
with my fiance out west. While there we stopped in San Francisco for
a couple of days, and during that time we went around the city with a
friend of hers who I'll call Tori, because that's her name. My
interaction with Tori had been limited in the four years that Steph
and I have been together, mostly because she moved out to Florida
shortly after we started dating, and then on to San Francisco. In the
brief time I'd spent around her, though, I'd rather presumptuously
formed an opinion of her that she was prone to flights of fancy and
maybe even a bit self-absorbed. I guess I saw that she's the kind of
person who does what feels right and what she wants to do, and I
interpreted that as being inconsiderate. Of course, I was wrong about
that, which became pretty plainly evident in the few hours we spent
with her in San Francisco. I should have been more self-aware and
realized before then that it was ridiculous of me to form a critical
opinion of her with so little time spent together.
Beyond that, though, I realized that
Tori had an important lesson to teach me. Beyond doing what is good
for her, she seems to be uniquely at peace with others doing whatever
is best for them. She sees people doing things that I might
internalize and get upset over – little things, mostly – and just
doesn't seem to care. Not that she's indifferent in a bad way, but
the attitude she exudes is one of “you're doing what you do, and
that is of no consequence to me.” Whereas I get angry when a person
fails to use a turn signal, or drives by my apartment with their
music too loud, or uses profanity in public, people like Tori see
those same things and it doesn't even seem to register on their
radar. Perhaps that's because she's so driven and focused on whatever
thing she is doing in that moment that she doesn't have time to
notice. Perhaps it's because she just knows how not to take things
personally, especially when those things have nothing to do with her.
I tend to have the opposite problem.
One could take Tori's lesson of
acceptance to an extreme and not ever hold others responsible for
their actions, but I can't see that type of indifference in her. One
must be able to distinguish when the actions of a person directly
affect us (or affect others) in an immediate and negative way, and
when the actions of a person have no consequence. If they have no
direct personal consequence, then there needs to be some other reason
to intervene. Maybe to speak up on another's behalf, for instance.
The point is to not take someone else's actions as a direct affront
or sign of disrespect when they clearly arent't. That's something
I've been guilty of a lot in the past.
Even when another's actions do directly
affect me, there is a line to be drawn when holding someone
responsible can serve a purpose (see 7/10 post), and when the effort
of holding them responsible for something minute is greater than the
impact one could hope to have by doing so. In other words, you need
to pick your battles. And sometimes you need to not concern yourself
with what others are doing, because if you got angry at everyone who
you ever saw commit a wrong or break the rules, you'd either go
hoarse or have a heart attack. It's a nuanced thing, knowing when to
get upset and when not to, but I think a good rule is to remain calm
and let things go more often than you get get to you, and save your
energies for when you may actually need them.
Worry more about living your own life
than about how others live theirs – that may be the best way to
summarize what Tori taught me.
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