What An African Woman Thinks
Everything is not about you. Really, it isn’t.
There’s a striking anecdote I stumbled upon once, in a booklet on Eastern Religion. I remember the concept better than the detail so I proceed to adapt and embellish.
You are walking down the street going from place A to place X. Suddenly someone comes out of their house carrying a bag of garbage, and places it along your logical path. You’re puzzled. Why would he do that, you wonder? Nonetheless, when you get to where he has dumped the bag, you pick it up, swing it over your shoulder and onto your back, and continue on your way. As you walk down the street, various other people come out of their houses and do the same thing. They put their garbage out on the street, along your path. You obligingly go picking it up and carrying it with you.
Soon, you’re walking down the street weighed down to a bend under a load of other people’s garbage.
You happen to bump into a friend who raises a quizzical eyebrow and wants to know, “what’s up?” Naturally.
You attempt an explanation:
“People seem to be determined to give me all their garbage today,” you say. To tell the truth, you’re upset, and you’re puzzled, and you’re more than a little insulted.
“Eh?” She’s responds. She’s not getting it. You need to pad that explanation a little, details please.
“Well, I’m walking down the street, going from A to X, as usual, and everybody’s coming out of their houses and giving me their garbage. I’m tired, and weighed down and the garbage smells, it really does, but what am I to do, they gave it to me.”
Your friend, who’s sane, which you clearly aren’t, folds her arms, takes a deep breath, and speaks to you slowly, clicking deliberately on the consonants, to be clear.
“Have you considered that people are putting out their garbage because it’s garbage day and the garbage truck is coming?”
All together now: Duh.
In case you’re wondering, this is one of those anecdotes that comes complete with moral. Package deal and all of that. You’re welcome.
The moral of the story is that sometimes people will put out their garbage because it is what they do, and then some other crazy people who don’t have enough trouble of their own will go right to where it is and pick it up, take it personally and own it, bank it, copyright it even.
Some people, we’ve all come across them I’m certain, are just plain nasty. They’re just as nasty to you as they are to the next person. It’s equal opportunity nastiness. They do nasty, they say nasty, they are nasty. But still, you take that nastiness to heart and cling to it and waste precious hours holding it against them when really, it’s their garbage.
They’re putting it out there, true, but you can just cross the street and walk on the other side of the road. Or bar that, nimbly side step it, honouring it with nary a glance and keep whistling down the street because you’ve got your own life to live and you’re not responsible for other people’s garbage, in the end and it’s not about you.
Other people are just having a bad day when you happen to stroll by and they have neither the self-restraint nor the courtesy to put the bad day away when you come by. So you walk into a colleague’s office and they’ve just come off an irritating half hour conversation and you ask something, all polite and friendly, and they snap at you impatiently and you recoil and go away and smart in your corner wondering what you did wrong when all the while, it’s not about you.
It’s quite possible you didn’t do anything to make your partner angry, he is just fuming because he got stuck in traffic for forty-five minutes which ate into the time he’d set aside to do the final work on that presentation before the meeting, which meant he wasn’t as confident as he could have been when he made the presentation and he sort of botched it and now there goes the prospect of that promotion he’d been angling for and all you did was try to have a conversation about what baby girl
did in school today and how you’re going to deal with it and he snapped. It’s not about you.
Really, everything is not about you.
The waiter’s being unbelievable gruff manner and he shouldn’t be, of course, but in the end it is not an indictment on your hairstyle, even though he did appear to do a double-take when first he glanced at you. It’s just that he’s just had a run in with the chef behind the revolving door about the special order he just brought in and he’s still smarting from that.
Again I say, everything is not about you.
You are under obligation to take responsibility for your own actions, certainly. But, you do not have control of other people’s reactions.
You need to learn not to go around picking up all the garbage that people put out, because really, it’s not about yIt's my window, but I don't own the view.
