The ‘Go Along Lady’
Dateline: Las Vegas, Pyramid Restaurant in the Luxor Hotel. And, yes, if you are in the group of four sitting with your backs to me…still in your evening-out garb from last night… First, let me say, you look lovely…and, ‘yes’, I am eavesdropping.
The Self Designed Life: The effort to have more and more of your decisions based on the FACTS as you know them…and to have your decisions determined less and less by EMOTIONAL PRESSURE from others or from within yourself (your own fears and anxieties).
What’s better than a clear physical example of making a decision based on keeping the other person calm? We return now to the ‘GO ALONG LADY’. (see Friendly Persuasion…)
Go Along Lady has four children, a husband, a sister who’s a Congresswoman, a mother-in-law who is disappointed that her son married a girl from a working class family, and an extra forty pounds haunting her every second. Why are these details important?
Because the less comfortable we are with the people around us, or more correctly stated…the less comfortable we are managing the judgments of others… the more unlikely it is that we will do whatever is needed to keep from rocking the boat.
Mysteryshrink Quick Shot: Once in a land close by, very close…a slightly overweight woman in my office was describing stress she was experiencing, teaching school and keeping up the house. I asked, “What happens if you let the house go for awhile?” ….She explained, “I can’t. It’s okay to be messy and thin, but it’s not okay to be messy and fat.”
Now, back to Go Along Lady. On the Sunday morning she describes to me, the family has arrived late to church, again. (Hey, four kids and a crabby mother-in-law and she still tries?…I’d be hearing services through a prison public address system.) Go Along Lady and her husband distribute the children in their respective Sunday school classrooms and reconnect in the hall to head for the Cathedral.
Which is when Go Along betrayed herself. “I have to make a pit stop at the bathroom,” she says. “I can join you inside, or if you want to wait, I’ll just be a sec.”
“I think it’s important for us to go in together and not be late,” her husband countered. Go Along Lady didn’t THINK walking in together was important and didn’t THINK being late would be a true problem. Go Along tried again, “Thirty seconds…I can be out…I don’t mind coming in and looking for you…or sitting in the back and meeting you after the service.”
He said: “It’s important to be a part of the church service as a couple. It’s embarrassing to have you in the Cathedral poking around looking for me.”
NOTE: Which person is ‘right’ or ‘more right’ is not the issue. Maybe at this particular church couples who do not come in together are assessed large fines. Maybe when one spouse has to look for the other inside the church, the choir bursts into chastising West Side Story music. You can argue these points endlessly and the answers DO NOT MATTER. What matters is the person’s ability to THINK through the scenario and make a decision in line with their BEST THINKING….which is often a BEST GUESS.
In the case of Go Along Lady, she chose to pass up the pit stop in order to keep her husband calmed down. Suffering a full bladder would be easier than going through an hour of pouting. Midway through the service, her bladder screaming…Go Along Lady…decided that NEXT TIME she would make the choice that made the most sense for her.
And she had a new goal…now she was interested in learning how to manage her anxiety when her husband was displeased with her choice. NOTE! Nowhere did she decide he was wrong and she was right… and she should either MAKE HIM UNDERSTAND or GET HIM TO CHANGE his preferences.
