The Viable Alternative

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It was the year 2008 and a good friend of mine invited me to come to a birthday party of one of his friends.

When I got to the birthday party, I met up with my friend who invited me and he introduced me to the “birthday girl.”

It turned out that the birthday girl and I had been a part of the same business organization some years back.  I began to tease her about not reaching a certain, “coveted” level in the organization, knowing full well in the forefront of my mind that I had not only not reached the said level of the organization, but I also had quit and was no longer a part of it.

My whole attempt at teasing her was an attempt at sarcasm and a way to make fun of my own self since I had not done any better than she did.  As a matter of fact, when she in turn asked me why I also didn’t reach this position, I confessed I was only joking with her as I did no better my self and wound up pathetically leaving the entire thing.

Well, there seemed to be no hard feelings about my busting her chops and I laughed it off and forgot about the whole thing.

Okay, so I thought there were no hard feelings, but I was about to find out otherwise……

A couple of days later I’m talking on the phone to my friend who had brought me to the party.  In the course of the conversation we talked about the party we went to and the girl who had invited him came up.  He then shares with me how she felt I rubbed her the wrong way with what I had been saying to her.  She felt I had no right to bust her chops the way I did because she didn’t know me like that to do so.  She even went on to say that she would’ve preferred that he didn’t bring me.

Needless to say, I was shocked and kind of hurt.  First off, I really didn’t mean any harm.  Like I said, my busting on her really was a self-deprecating attempt to make fun of myself, since I never was really successful myself in the business in which I was teasing her about not reaching a certain level.

Second off, with alcohol usually being the culprit of someone spewing random ridiculousness, I couldn’t have imagined myself of having been obnoxious, because I was stone cold sober and had absolutely nothing to drink.  At the time I was doing a 30 day health regimen which required that I didn’t drink any alcohol for its duration.

Third, I thought to myself, “Why would I go out of m way to purposely piss off the birthday girl whose party I was at?”

Lastly, knowing my “sordid” past of running off at the mouth and offending many a person, which earned me a reputation of being tactless and utterly rude (a label I truly hated having), I really thought that I had overcome that.  It hurt that with all the work that I felt I had done on myself to be a “nice guy”, that I was still hearing this from people

After I got off the phone with my friend, I got down on my knees and prayed to God.  I came to Him in a desperate, frustrated almost angry manner saying, “After all this time why have you STILL not changed me?  Why can’t you just help me change and overcome my faults?  Look at this, I’m still offending people!  When is this going to stop and when am I going to be allowed to grow past this?”

When I finished the prayer a few minutes later as I was trying to go about my business, I sensed the Lord trying speaking to me.  No, it wasn’t in one of those manners where thunder sounded from the heavens, the clouds parted, then a bright light from heaven shined directly on me with my hair blowing in the wind, with a deep baritone voice sounding from the sky saying, “IKE MY SON.  I’VE HEARD YOUR PRAYER……”

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Com’on now, you’ve been watching “The Ten Commandments” one too many times.

In truth, it was that still small voice speaking to my heart with wisdom that I couldn’t have possibly known myself.  It was very clear, and He said, “The only reason why you’re upset is because someone is disapproving of you.  Relax, let me be in charge and let me do My work.”

Wow, really profound…

This insight was further cemented by a book I read a few months later called “Walking with God,” by John Eldredge.  In the book, the author describes a prayer he prayed to God that went like this, “God, show me how I’m doing, how You think I’m doing, and how I’m really doing.”

In essence, what I was taught at this moment was that the things that I thought were wrong with me and was beating myself up over were not actually what God thought was wrong with me.  Moreover, the things that I thought that needed fixing in me were based on what I interpreted other people’s perceptions to be of me, and may not have necessarily been what I needed to work on.  God had an ENTIRELY different perspective what I actually needed to work on.

In life, people have placed many labels on us, but we have to ask ourselves, are they based on TRUTH or are they just based on the person’s own idiosyncrasies and erroneous perception of life?  A teacher in grade school may have called you an idiot, which you may have taken to heart right up to this very day, but most likely, the teacher was in a bad mood, frustrated, etc, and was lashing out to let off some steam.

Other times a person may have put a label on you because they see the same quality in themselves, and because they don’t like it, they judge you about it to make themselves feel better.

I mentioned in other blogs that I had a bad temper as a child and up to my teenage years.  My mother would point this out and would assert many times that I had to get my temper under control.  As I got older, I did just that and learned to control my temper with a desire to get my mother’s approval and guilt that my mom saw me as person out of control, which I had believed myself.  What actually shocked me more, was that though I saw myself deep down as an angry person, just about all my good friends saw me as this calm person and would tell me, despite my protests, that they could never imagine me losing my temper.

Yet, whenever I would get into a disagreement with my mom and I raised my voice just one octave, not even out of anger but just out of the spirit of the discussion, my mom would immediately jump on the fact that I was raising my voice and say that I needed to get this “anger of mine” under control or else I will give whatever woman I wind up with trouble.  I, of course would immediately go on the defensive and get all self conscious.

Moreover, if I ever had a situation where I had a legitimate reason to be annoyed with my mother or angry, and I expressed it in a legitimate way the way someone is supposed to when he or she is upset or angry, it was again thrown in my face my “issue” with anger and how I had to get it under control.  My even experiencing anger was judged and criticized, and I would wind up feeling guilty and getting defensive.

Well, one day, I was on the phone and my mom had asked me to wash my dishes in the sink and I told her I would get to them when I got off the phone.  Needless to say, she came back five minutes later while I was still on the phone and blew her top about the dishes not being done.

This was a very revealing moment for me.

I thought to myself, “Wow, if I had lost my temper in the same way that she did just now, I would’ve been given all these criticisms about my ‘bad temper’ and how out of control I was, along with all these grave predictions about my future.  Yet, she does it and it’s alright?  According to the way she judges anger, what does this situation say about her?”

My mind also when to those moments where I felt I had a right to be annoyed or angry because of a way I may have been wronged by my mother, but was judged, and I realized that my mom, in a similar situation, would’ve acted in anger herself.  So then, why was I being judged for this?

It was from this moment on that I realized all these labeling that she had put on me was a bunch of b.s. used to control and manipulate me.  I mean, her accusations were more coming from a place of judgment from someone who had no right to judge.  Her judgments were more about her than they were about me.

By the way, God bless my mom.  She truly is a loving, nurturing, caring, very giving woman.

It was at this point I gave up any remaining guilt about any anger I had.  I also let go of any fear of expressing anger, realizing that anger is a perfectly normal emotion to express as long as it’s expressed in a healthy way and not letting it control you to the point of going out and killing five hundred people.

Now, this is not to say whether I did or didn’t have anger issues.  The issue with my mom wasn’t my anger at all, it was rather more about judging and manipulating me to cover her own insecurities.

This goes to show that what we may think is wrong with us may not actually be what we need to work on because they may not be based on any actual truth.  They just all form a part of The Illusion of what we think we are but really aren’t.

Now, don’t get me wrong, we ALL have blindspots that other people can see on us but we can’t see on ourselves of things we actually do need to change.  If you hear people saying the same thing about you over and over and over again, then it may be an indicator that God is trying to tell you something and you need to look into it.

This is why it’s very important to associate with the right people whose opinions and advice you trust who may also be on their own path of self improvement and self discovery in one way or another.  People like this are quite crucial to your growth because they will notice things in you that you don’t notice in yourself and vice versa.  These people, if they’re really your true friends, will have your best interest at heart.

In regards to this point, there were definitely MANY, many times in my life where I had exhibited rudeness towards others that close, trusted friends had pointed out.  Situations that earned me the reputation of being a rude. bastard  I don’t doubt the legitimacy of many of these claims, however, the situation with the birthday girl wasn’t about who was right and who was wrong, it was a lesson that I had been going about dealing with my issues the wrong way.

I had depended on my own wisdom to work out my faults and not on the wisdom of the Creator, therefore I got frustrated when it appeared to me that I wasn’t overcoming my faults.  His lesson was that they will get dealt with in their own way, in their own time, in their own sequence.  My problem was that I felt that my “improvement” had to look a certain way, and be worked out in a certain manner.  God had other ideas.

Though we all have ideas about how we should be overcoming our faults, it doesn’t mean that we’re right.

Either way, I digress, back to the original point I was making.

The truth of the matter is that there is a bigger plan at work.  God created each of us for a specific purpose in mind for the unraveling of a bigger picture that only He knows and we’ve only received very minute glimpses of.

So, since that’s the case, wouldn’t God, an Infinite Being, have a MUCH better idea of what about ourselves we need to work on than some person who not only was created just like you and me, but also has his or her own insecurities that he is more interested in hiding by judging you to make himself feel better than he is interested in telling the truth?

Wouldn’t God know better about what’s wrong with you than someone who’s just trying to be hurtful and/or let off some steam?

If this person had been more interested in telling the truth, he would’ve FIRST removed the plank in his own eye BEFORE telling you to remove the speck in yours.  In fact, it is because of the plank in his own eye that he can’t clearly see the speck in yours.

Basically, there are three perceptions we have to contend with:

• What people say that is wrong with us
• What we think we need to work on
• What we really need to work on (God’s perception)

Like I said before, many of the labels people put on us our based on their own limited perceptions, yet, we take what they say as gospel.  Many of the things that we think that is wrong with us are based on guilt of not living up to someone else’s standards, the standards of society, etc, and may not actually be what needs fixing.

Also, many of the things that are actually wrong with us that we’re aware of may actually what may need “fixing” at this point.

What do you mean by that Ike?

Think about when we were little kids and we may see our parents fixing something and we innocently want to help them so we may hand them a tool they don’t really need or we do something to whatever they’re working on only to make it worse.  The truth of the matter is, our parents knew what they were doing, we didn’t, so it was best to stay out of their way.

It’s the same way our Creator.  We were created with a magnificent purpose in mind.  When we don’t have Divine guidance, many times we adopt a harshly judgmental attitude towards ourselves and go about working on the wrong thing about ourselves, getting in God’s way of the work He wants to do on us.  He may have an ENTIRELY different plan of what needs working on with us because He sees us in an ENTIRELY different way.

I mean, sure we all have faults, but maybe, just maybe, the faults that we think need to be worked on yesterday because they’re so shockingly bad may not be what God wants to deal with just yet.  It could be that what we think of as so appalling, God may see as no big deal.

We all need to stop being so hard on ourselves.

Instead, by making an effort to surrender to God, Source, the Divine, (or whatever you call our Creator) and letting Him guide us, He will invariably lead us to know what REALLY needs working on, and will empower us to change what really needs changing.

This is The Viable Alternative, when we experience growth according to the purpose of our core being.

Hope this helps.