Picture this! A renowned teacher/educator and his entourage is coming to your home for dinner and will spend the night at your home. Your sister lives with you, and she’s supposed to help you prepare for the guests, who arrive early. You are busy preparing for the guests – cooking, cleaning, organizing things for everyone to eat, sleep and enjoy each other’s company. Your sister is sitting in the room listening to the teacher. You become annoyed because you believe your sister should be helping. Instead, she’s listening to the teacher, soaking in the valuable lessons being taught. So, who is right? Are you right for admonishing your sister for listening to the teacher or did your sister actually make the better decision to listen to the teacher?
Is there a clear answer of who is right and who is wrong?
Okay. What is your perspective when it comes to your job? Does it bother you when others appear to be focused on things that while important do not help “get the present project complete”? For example, you’re at work and a client who spends a great deal with your firm stops by and you want to show him/her your progress on the project. You go into full production mode to get a quick synopsis pulled together for review. How would you feel if your co-worker was sitting with the client, seemingly just listening and having a great time while you toil laboriously pulling together a quick update. Do you become agitated because if your co-worker came and helped instead of talking, the update could be completed faster and you could start the review faster.
In both scenarios, if you re-frame the situation, the frustration begins to subside. By keeping the teacher and the client engaged in conversation, there’s more time for you to handle the activities in the background – the preparation for the home or the project update.
Another lesson or “take away” is that sometimes you have to be available to connect with the source of your strength regardless of what’s going on around you. Gaining knowledge and wisdom is often more important than the mechanics of a clean house or office. You can always “clean-up” or feed one’s physiological self, but being available when the Teacher is there to feed your mind and spirit, well, you have to seize that opportunity when it comes. Look at the “big picture” and the arrangement of the individual pixels will make more sense as they all come together to form an image.
What lessons can you derive from this scenario? Your thoughts, “a ha” moment, and/or response to this scenario may be completely different. We are all different. Our thoughts and perceptions about a situation are cultivated by our past experiences and our personal “truths”.
In all aspects of our lives, we make decisions based on our interpretation of the situations we experience, the words we hear and the things we see. That becomes OUR truth. When we learn to accept and respect that each person is responding or taking action based on their unique “truth”, we are able to live more harmoniously. It doesn’t mean I agree with your truth. It means I respect you as a person and sometimes we agree and sometimes we agree to disagree.
The next time you feel you’re pulling more of the load than your partner or teammate, remember the sisters, re-frame the situation and look for the lesson.
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