35 years ago, my friend Sonya recognized what she called my biggest fault. She said that I immediately “put everyone on a pedestal and when they cannot stay there because your expectations are so high, you are the one who gets hurt and it is slowly killing you”. She then said, if I expected the worst out of everyone, I would almost always be pleasantly surprised since no one is always at their worst.
She was right about the slowly killing me. I went through several phases, but it just is not in me to expect the worst from people. I tried being more realistic and that helped, but I soon learned what I thought was realistic, actually wasn’t.
In the next phase, I started looking at myself. My original thought to do this was because I noticed how many people would complain or gossip about someone and they were just as guilty, if not more so, than the other person. That bothered me greatly – was I blind to my own faults also? By seeing those faults in myself, I would not be so hurt or frustrated with others. I still really wanted everyone to be the best at everything especially if I saw that potential, but I was more understanding when they weren’t.
The effect though was that I found that, by continually looking to see if I had the same faults, I was becoming hyper-critical of myself and could see absolutely no good in me. If someone treated me badly, took credit for my work, lied to try to discredit me, insulted me under the guise of “joking” or “just having fun”, etc., my immediate reaction was I probably deserved it, so they did nothing wrong – it was all me.
Now, Sonya said I put everyone on a pedestal, but that is not exactly accurate. I get an immediate “sense” (for lack of a better word) “this person is not what they appear to be and/or claim to be”. After my 20s, I never really had a large social circle, so people were pretty limited to work, family, Church and a few outside friends, so the “radar” has only gone off a few times, but it has never been proven wrong. But even with them, I am constantly praying I am wrong, constantly waiting for them to prove me wrong, and yes, constantly doing the self-examination to see if I am doing the same thing. It was these few people who have caused me the most pain because I saw their potential, but not only were they not living up to it, they were doing the exact opposite. How can I help or support them when all I could see was the manipulation and sometimes evil of them.
You may be asking by now, “Why do you care if someone does or does not live up to their potential? Who do you think you are? Are you not “judging” others?”
You must remember, I am talking about people in my life (work, family, church, friends), not perfect strangers. If I am not interacting with you, then I would not have any sense of your potential at all, much less be hurt if you do not live up to it. I honestly and truly do care about everyone. In addition to wanting the best for everyone, I have just witnessed too many times the negative impact on others when someone does not give or do their best. I think I have said before that a former boss once said I get more upset and fight harder for others than I would ever do for myself. I have always been the fix it gal, the goto gal, the cleanup gal. That same boss when trying to submit my name for an award said “how do I write, Sue is the go to person for everyone and especially cleans up all our messes?”. I have never wanted to be anything other than the person everyone can count on. I just try to figure out how best to assist you.
After I took the buy out, interactions with others were extremely limited. However, in the last year, that has not been the case. Some of my old tendencies were rearing their ugly head and I have been plunging into darkness more often (as you know if you have read my previous posts). The last couple of months, however, I noticed that even though the disappointments have increased, my dark periods have been less often and shorter in length. So this time, my self-examination was: what am I doing different that apparently is right or have I just stopped caring?
The answer to the 2nd question is unequivocally NO. I still care tremendously (I am sure some think still too much). So, then I turned to the 1st question. What was I doing right… something I do not think I had asked myself ever.
What I discovered is twofold. 1. I have limited my exposure to the best of my ability to the 1 person who has been my biggest angst. It has cost me dearly as I can no longer participate in activities that I enjoyed and that involved people that I love. The damage it was doing to my soul seeing her “win over” so many people when in my heart I know the truth and I know people are going to be extremely hurt by her (especially one) was just too much. There is no way I can help her. I tried. I tried talking to her. I tried praying for her (and still do). I tried being her friend. I tried offering and giving my assistance with her many projects. Nothing was changing and too many people are blind to her. I still honestly love her as a child of God, but until God changes her or shows me that I am wrong (which I will proudly admit if He does, but He hasn’t in the last 14 months that I have been begging for it), I have to remove myself as much as possible. I think that decision has had the single most impact on me.
The 2nd thing that I was doing without planning to do so – even when faced with disappointment, frustration, and even a couple times anger with someone – I almost immediately thought about the good, the positive, the absolute potential of them. Whenever possible, I tried to encourage others who may have been the ones who received the negative aspect of the fault, error, or whatever, to do the same. The extra bonus has occurred just in the last few days. As much as I do not want to disappoint anyone, I have tried to stop worrying about doing so. If someone is totally silent about things I am doing or not doing, I cannot continue to try to guess what they think. If I am concerned at all, I just stop doing it – if they actually liked what I was doing, hopefully they will say so and I will begin again.
So I guess Bing’s song was right:
Accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative. Latch on to the affirmative!
blessedadorer 
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