How Lovely it is in Our Own Little World

After a banquet with leaders of a school district, I was headed for the podium for my keynote when one of the administrators pulled me down slightly to share a secret.  The look of concern on his face made me suspious that I was about to flash some part my anatomy I’d hadn’t planned on sharing.  He said, “Don’t worry about what Mr. X said.  He lives in his own little world.”  I was thinking–”Don’t we all?” But I didn’t say my question out loud as this was the guy who’d hired me.

Which is more real?  The world we can touch?  Or the world we are responding to?  I hadn’t noticed that Mr. X had said anything of note.  Clearly Mr. Y had created a Mr. X in his head, and it was this co-worker he worried about.

   Mr. X stated the obvious.  Only, sometimes we lose touch with the fact that we are operating out of “our own little world.”  Sometimes we behave as if our little world is THE world. 

How can we tell when we’re behaving if our little world is all there is of reality?  One way is to notice when we are stuck in push-pull accelrating arguments about something that doesn’t matter–though, of course, we are behaving if convincing other person to agree with us will change the course of world events.  You can bet your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is running that show. It’s pretty easy to see from a factual THINKNG GUIDANCE SYSTEM perspective the long-term result you get with this kind of arguement is not what you get. 

You’ve been there.  You come in from work.  Both of you are in a good mood and looking forward to a pleasant evening.  Then one person says, I’ll really like to have pasta tonight, but you forgot to buy pasta when you went to the store.”  The other says, “Pasta wasn’t on the list.”  Person number one says, “You’re wrong, it was on the list.”  “No, it wasn’t.” 

Then we shift to second gear.  One says, “Why are you always like this?” ((Now we’ve switched from pasta to ‘what’s wrong with the person.)) The other says, “Me? You‘re the only who always has to make a big deal of things.” ((Best defense is a good offense.))  “You’re the one who gets loud and hurts my feelings.” ((Now we call into question the other person’s love.))  “Right. And you were the one who blew up at the poor parking meter reader?” ((Now begins the exchange of real life examples of each other’s least attractive moments.  That always works.))

Challenge:  At least one time tomorrow …when you find yourself chastising someone for being different than you…or having a different opinion…even a different political stance or solution to the economic situation…or even chastisg a stranger for being more interested in making good time on the freeway themselves…rather than devoting their driving efforts toward making sure you have a stress free and time-efficient drive…give them PERMISSION to be different from you.

This is VERY HARD. More….