I hope & trust this post finds you all having had a great day and that you are having an awesome week! I have written several Happy Fridays on Saturday & Sunday so I figured what the heck, I can certainly write one a few hours early, right?! Besides, my Beautiful Bride and two youngest Tender Warriors are flying in late tonight after being gone for nearly 2 weeks and I am giddy! :)
Earlier this week I took a business trip. The people where I was did not look like me, talk like me, act life me and they certainly didn't dress like me. While I was waiting for one of my appointments at a Starbucks, another businessman struck up a conversation with me. As I was leaving he asked for my business card. An hour or so later I received a text message from him asking if I wanted to get together later. We agreed to meet for dinner.
This man was from this place and thus, we were vastly different. We talked about our families, our hopes & dreams, our success & struggles...we talked about life. We shared our perspectives on various things - from the lighthearted to the very serious. It was strange as we talked, two people not interested in being right, looking good, etc. but rather simply trying to learn & understand the other. As we left each other he said something like, "It is nice to meet someone like you. Most of your people aren't like that. To hear your perspective was great." It was profound to me and got me thinking a lot about that word...perspective.
Perspective is defined as "a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view." You see, what my new friend was communicating was he is used to seeing people who look, talk, act & dress like me with an attitude different than mine. People who hold him and "his people" in a certain, from the way he said it negative, regard. People who come at him with their point of view without any regard what so ever for a differing point of view.
This is the heart - key word & critical thing...the heart - of the issue, problem, challenge or whatever adjective you want to use to describe it. Based on our point of view we develop an attitude and hold people and things in different regard(s) based on this narrow, singular view. Look around Friends. We think nothing of telling others what they should do, how they should have handled the situation, what they should have said, what they should have done...all based on our point of view. The problem with this is it assumes that we know everything - the person or people, the situation, the problems, the challenges, the obstacles, the emotions, the risk, the possible rewards...the list can go on for quite a while. But do we really know? Everything?
I wanna offer a challenge to each one of us, including me, this week. For one week I want to challenge us to "seek first to understand, then to be understood." (I don't know exactly who to credit for this quote. I do know that Stephen Covey lists it as his 5th habit in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.) When someone says something that offends you or that you don't like, ask them to clarify instead of immediately replying. Try to understand what they are trying to say, what is at the heart, before you form a response. When someone does or doesn't do something that you think they shouldn't have or should have done, seek to understand why they did or didn't do it. It's kinda hard to tell someone what they should or shouldn't be doing if you don't even know the reason behind the action or inaction. Before you look at someone and determine success/failure, rich/poor, neat/slob, friendly/mean, etc. get to know the person & the heart of the person. I am highly confident that if we will all truly look first to understand and then, if really necessary, to be understood, the world will change in a profound manner around us. We will have gained a new perspective and our entire being will be richer for it.
A couple of other real quick thoughts:
- Every one of us wants to be understood, to know that our thoughts, feelings, worries, fears, hopes & dreams matter. You will be amazed at how people respond to you when you let them know that you really care, demonstrated by your pure-hearted desire to understand, about them.
- I gotta tell y'all; while it is true that I was in a place where the people did not look, talk, act or dress like me I found that everyone responds favorably to a smile, a kind gesture, a friendly countenance. We can focus on our differences, many if not most do, however there are many similarities and a great number of really great people out there who we will see when we look them in the eye and let them see the greatness & goodness within us.
- Finally, I want to share a quote with you that I shared on Facebook earlier this week: "Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world." - Wayne W. Dyer It is all about perspective Friends, and I would argue, what we choose to seek.
Have a great Friday, a wonderful weekend and please cherish your precious families.
Kev
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