My sister and I attended a party a few weeks ago. The next day, the hostess texted both of us, thanking us for attending the party and we both replied, thanking her for the good time we had and for the return gifts.
Later on we had a long discussion about how we should have expressed our thanks before she did, that we were somehow amiss, and horrors! how did we come across-boorish, thankless people?
Nothing had happened. There was no etiquette police with handcuffs waiting to put us behind bars because we had made the big mistake of not thanking the lady in time. She didn’t call and tell us her feelings were hurt because of our ingratitude.
This was all in our minds. We must have spent at least an hour texting back and forth about this, till sanity prevailed and we moved on.
This brings me to my WOTY-Move. Move on. I don’t know if this was actually a social gaffe or just our bored minds overworking, but I was ready to move on.
In his book, The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz writes that one of the agreements to make with yourself is ‘Don’t make assumptions’.
We don’t know what is going on in the minds of other people. We don’t know what they are thinking, feeling, believing. We make assumptions based on their culture, age, gender, race, size, education etc, etc, etc., and ours too.
On a day to day basis, we make assumptions based on a person’s tone of voice, the body language, the facial expressions. On a side note, I can’t count how many times I have had to explain to my family that I am not angry, it’s just the wrinkles I am developing between my eyebrows giving me the resting angry face.
I read the following story in ‘You are here’ by Thich Nhat Hanh
A husband returns home after a three year war to his wife and first born child. He has a good time with his family. But the child refuses to call him ‘Daddy’. In the evening the wife goes to the market to get groceries. The father and son start talking about the war, the father saying he was scared at times but the thought of his family kept him brave.
The son says he used to get scared at night but then his ‘real father’ would visit him every night. His father would sit when his mother sat and stand when she stood. They would cry together and laugh together.
The young man was shocked and hurt.
What do you think he did? Did he ask his wife about it? No. Did he ask her to clarify what the child was saying? No. Instead he made a story in his mind, about his wife having an affair.
The wife comes back from grocery shopping and finds the husband’s mood changed. He is angry, irritated. She tries to ask him the reason for his anger but he brushes her off. He goes out and spends three days and nights in the local bar.
The wife, who is suffering and feeling sad, drowns herself on the fourth day.
When he comes back from the funeral, after putting his son to bed, he stands up and his son cries out, there, there is my real father! The man looks around but can see no-one. He asks his son to point out the real father.
The son points to the man’s shadow on the wall.
When he had been at war and his son got scared at night, the wife would show her shadow to the child and tell him about his father. They would sit together, stand together, laugh and cry together.
Wrong assumptions, wrong perceptions, causing so much suffering.
Of course, this is a story.
But how many times have I gone on and on in my mind about what I said to someone, how I behaved in a certain situation and what would the other person be thinking about me.
Even though this person has not shared their thoughts with me.
I make assumptions about other people based on my own life experiences, and then suffer through what I think they must be thinking about me, without knowing for sure.
The problem is that this colors my behavior with people. If I assume that they have a wrong perception about me, the next time I meet them, I will not be able to behave naturally. I will have a chip on my shoulder, that I have to prove they are wrong about me.
Exhausting!
So, I am going to try and move on.
Yes, social gaffes happen. I am not responsible for what others think about me. I am only responsible for my own behavior which should be as good as humanly possible. I will learn from every experience and then move on.
Life is too short to spend ruminating about who said what and I did what.
How many times have I played the game of ‘she said this, but she was looking like this so she must mean this?’ We are taught to assume what people mean because that is being sensitive to other’s emotions.
I feel it just muddies the picture.
Keep it simple. Say what you mean and accept that people say what they mean. Life would be so much simpler.
Be nice, be good and move on.
And if you have to assume something about someone, make it good. Being a human is hard, let’s give each other a break.
What do you think? Am I on the right path?