Happy New Year!
Take my late wishes as evidence of my uniqueness.
I have always loved New Year's as a holiday best. My diaries from younger years are peppered with the "from this day on, I shall..." and "today is the beginning of a new era..." sort of optimistic drivel. New Year's Day is the perfect excuse to open a brand new date book with fresh pressed pages and clean lines and cut the chains of old baggage. It's a pass to throw out past mistakes. What's not to love?
(For whatever reason, this discussion is reminding me of my love of browsing through the Container Store to stock up on paraphernalia to keep me organized, which I also see as my chance for a "fresh start." While I was in San Francisco, I discovered that GC is also a Container Store freak. After our $65 bottle of wine while watching the sun set over the SF bay, we found the nearest Container Store and spent a while oohing and awing over baskets and shoe racks and storage systems. Plus, we picked up their catalogues. I don't know if I'm very comforted or very bothered that we discovered this shared obsession. What does this really SAY about us?)
In any case, as it's the New Year, I've been thinking about my wishes for myself for 2008. They are converging around the subject of judging. Or more accurately, NOT judging.
I really have never been much of a judgmental person, and that is one of my traits that I am actually proud of (I think). Part of the reason I am this way is because I live in total fear of others judging me. I suppose I think that by not looking at other people through judging eyes, I'm somehow increasing the probability that the same courtesy will be given to me, through some cosmic karma I guess (heh, right). Part of it is also because I've made more than a few dumb mistakes in my life, and I am acutely aware that you can be a well-meaning and caring person and still do some dumb things. Most people have some piece of themselves that is genuinely good. You deprive yourself of the opportunity to discover those pieces if you are judgmental. It's very blinding, and ultimately self-depriving.
I've become very aware of how judgmental most of humankind is lately, and it really bums me out. I'm talking everyday sorts of things.
For example, at work, I discovered that a telecon for an aspect of our upcoming mission was happening on Wednesday through co-worker X. X tells me that an email was sent out that did not include me. He was livid for me and told me that the HQ person setting up the list is a b*tch and that I should rake her over the coals for excluding me because "she thinks she knows everything and thinks she is in charge." My experience with HQ person did not give me that impression, but based on the passion spouted by co-worker X, I started to become a little irritated. I resolved, however, to retain my pollianna attitude that HQ person is well-meaning and I ended up having a nice, productive, very humorous correspondence with her about including me on the email list in the future. (Don't know why co-worker has judged her as a b*tch. There must have been some interaction between the two that I don't know about)
Dear neighbor M (whom it seems I've not seen in FOREVER because she is busy with her life, how dare she be) told me once that I was one of the "nicest" people she knows (I don't know if you remember saying that, M, but I do, quite clearly!!! You can't take it back now!). She meant it, of course, as a compliment to me, and she made my head swell to all kinds of sizes for the next several days because I *want* to be nice and see the good in people.
Somewhere on the fringes of "nice," though, there can be an implicit implication of naivete. [I'm speaking generally here. This is not what M meant....at least, I don't think so!!!] There's optimism, but then there's realism. While I like to think that I want to see the good in people, I also would like to think I'm not some vapid and shallow smiley-face seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. In the best of all worlds, we can find the real goodness in people and see it, not in a false and rosy world, but see it there shining like a diamond in the rough and tumble of the all the darks and grays of real life.
We are all complicated. Until I know the reasons WHY person A appears to be self-absorbed or WHY person B is irritable, I am premature to dismiss them or judge them. Discussion of other people (gossip) is the lowest form of communication. I just cannot remember where I read this, but I do remember reading somewhere an analysis of conversation that placed discussion of other people as the lowest level, of events/happenings as the second level, and of ideas as the third level. I am blessed to have some wonderful friends who I routinely communicate with on the third level (e.g., hello, Jamies!!! and Mare!!!) (I'm not being exclusive here - just writing off the cuff).
I think that during 2007, I've been tending to move down the scales of conversation. I've been slipping into the easy track of gossip and judging. And that makes me very uncomfortable. That's going to stop in 2008. The person that makes a fau paux in social interaction, may be incredibly shy (like my son) or be so harried and busy that they don't have the time to dissect possible social interpretations. The person that seems overly type-A and rigid may, in fact, lend a valid perception of how something is handled. We miss out on so much when we put on blinders and see the world in black and white. It takes effort to not to overinterpret conversations we have with people or to overinterpret actions of others. There has to be a willingness to apply a liberal dose of forgetting and a lot of stepping back from situations. Perhaps there is some measure of naivete that is necessary, but in this case, it's not true naivete but a carefully chosen one. Perhaps I'm wrong and I'm putting myself in a world of illusion. But it's a world that seems more beautiful to me than one where I end up making judgments about people.
My New Year's resolution is not to let this part of me be eroded away. I'm holding tight to this part of myself.
(For whatever reason, this discussion is reminding me of my love of browsing through the Container Store to stock up on paraphernalia to keep me organized, which I also see as my chance for a "fresh start." While I was in San Francisco, I discovered that GC is also a Container Store freak. After our $65 bottle of wine while watching the sun set over the SF bay, we found the nearest Container Store and spent a while oohing and awing over baskets and shoe racks and storage systems. Plus, we picked up their catalogues. I don't know if I'm very comforted or very bothered that we discovered this shared obsession. What does this really SAY about us?)
In any case, as it's the New Year, I've been thinking about my wishes for myself for 2008. They are converging around the subject of judging. Or more accurately, NOT judging.
I really have never been much of a judgmental person, and that is one of my traits that I am actually proud of (I think). Part of the reason I am this way is because I live in total fear of others judging me. I suppose I think that by not looking at other people through judging eyes, I'm somehow increasing the probability that the same courtesy will be given to me, through some cosmic karma I guess (heh, right). Part of it is also because I've made more than a few dumb mistakes in my life, and I am acutely aware that you can be a well-meaning and caring person and still do some dumb things. Most people have some piece of themselves that is genuinely good. You deprive yourself of the opportunity to discover those pieces if you are judgmental. It's very blinding, and ultimately self-depriving.
I've become very aware of how judgmental most of humankind is lately, and it really bums me out. I'm talking everyday sorts of things.
For example, at work, I discovered that a telecon for an aspect of our upcoming mission was happening on Wednesday through co-worker X. X tells me that an email was sent out that did not include me. He was livid for me and told me that the HQ person setting up the list is a b*tch and that I should rake her over the coals for excluding me because "she thinks she knows everything and thinks she is in charge." My experience with HQ person did not give me that impression, but based on the passion spouted by co-worker X, I started to become a little irritated. I resolved, however, to retain my pollianna attitude that HQ person is well-meaning and I ended up having a nice, productive, very humorous correspondence with her about including me on the email list in the future. (Don't know why co-worker has judged her as a b*tch. There must have been some interaction between the two that I don't know about)
Dear neighbor M (whom it seems I've not seen in FOREVER because she is busy with her life, how dare she be) told me once that I was one of the "nicest" people she knows (I don't know if you remember saying that, M, but I do, quite clearly!!! You can't take it back now!). She meant it, of course, as a compliment to me, and she made my head swell to all kinds of sizes for the next several days because I *want* to be nice and see the good in people.
Somewhere on the fringes of "nice," though, there can be an implicit implication of naivete. [I'm speaking generally here. This is not what M meant....at least, I don't think so!!!] There's optimism, but then there's realism. While I like to think that I want to see the good in people, I also would like to think I'm not some vapid and shallow smiley-face seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. In the best of all worlds, we can find the real goodness in people and see it, not in a false and rosy world, but see it there shining like a diamond in the rough and tumble of the all the darks and grays of real life.
We are all complicated. Until I know the reasons WHY person A appears to be self-absorbed or WHY person B is irritable, I am premature to dismiss them or judge them. Discussion of other people (gossip) is the lowest form of communication. I just cannot remember where I read this, but I do remember reading somewhere an analysis of conversation that placed discussion of other people as the lowest level, of events/happenings as the second level, and of ideas as the third level. I am blessed to have some wonderful friends who I routinely communicate with on the third level (e.g., hello, Jamies!!! and Mare!!!) (I'm not being exclusive here - just writing off the cuff).
I think that during 2007, I've been tending to move down the scales of conversation. I've been slipping into the easy track of gossip and judging. And that makes me very uncomfortable. That's going to stop in 2008. The person that makes a fau paux in social interaction, may be incredibly shy (like my son) or be so harried and busy that they don't have the time to dissect possible social interpretations. The person that seems overly type-A and rigid may, in fact, lend a valid perception of how something is handled. We miss out on so much when we put on blinders and see the world in black and white. It takes effort to not to overinterpret conversations we have with people or to overinterpret actions of others. There has to be a willingness to apply a liberal dose of forgetting and a lot of stepping back from situations. Perhaps there is some measure of naivete that is necessary, but in this case, it's not true naivete but a carefully chosen one. Perhaps I'm wrong and I'm putting myself in a world of illusion. But it's a world that seems more beautiful to me than one where I end up making judgments about people.
My New Year's resolution is not to let this part of me be eroded away. I'm holding tight to this part of myself.
2 comments:
I meant to comment on this before, but I couldn't put it the right way.
This is a great post that shows what a mature and compassionate human being you are. It's easy to resolve to do something for yourself-- it's much harder to try to empathize with other people. It's a lot easier to gossip and judge.
I think we all struggle with this, but I think you do much better at being nonjudgmental than a lot of people I know. Good for you, and happy belated new year!
I think this is a laudable goal! :)
Then again, if we don't talk about other people...what's left to talk about? Sure you can't mean we should just talk about ourselves and the weather? How dull would that be?
I find other people interesting, but I try to discuss the negatives in general terms - not "gossip." At work, I'm so far out of the gossip loop it's weird - even my boss looks at me like I've had my head stuck in the sand, sometimes, because I haven't heard the latest on so-and-so clear across the office complex. I have too much work to do, to get caught up in that!
Holly
http://jahangiri.us/blog
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