A friend of mine posted this meme on her Facebook page, and I instantly thought, “I feel a blog coming on.” That happens a lot with me. But this thought was particularly loud.
Altering someone’s perspective in this way could have a profound impact on them. In this case, I hope this boy will grow up to be kinder, more considerate, more compassionate, and less selfish. (Although, who knows, he may have done so anyway.) These are all good things.
I hope he doesn’t take it to the extreme, though, of putting himself dead last. I hope his mother also emphasizes the fact that it’s perfectly acceptable to answer, “Today I helped myself by doing xyz,” because as just about every woman on the planet can tell you, a lifetime of messages that you should put everyone ahead of yourself is, ultimately, self-destructive. If you don’t take care of yourself, your ability to care for others will have an expiration date. I see it all the time.
In fact, I’m watching that happen to someone I love right now. He’s allowing himself to be neglected, disrespected, and financially used to such a shocking degree that it’s taking every ounce of my being not to descend on the situation with a flame thrower and do some serious house cleaning. But he is his own person, and will make his own choices no matter what I say or do. And it seems that right now, he doesn’t want to hear anything from anyone.
It is not the first time I’ve had to stand on the train platform, wringing my hands while watching a slow-motion train wreck play out before my eyes. (Add this to the very long list of reasons why I chose not to have children of my own.) But this wreck will be epic, because it could very well result in his financial ruin right along with his emotional devastation, and at the end of his life he probably won’t just have regrets. He’ll be much worse off financially than he could have been.
Since I am helpless in this situation, I’m left with the following thought experiment. What happened to this young man to make him think that he deserves nothing but sh*t sandwiches for the rest of his life? What was the tipping point?
I’ve known him his entire life, you see, and I’ve known a few of the major players in his life. I’m fairly certain that, at the very least, he was never told that he was worthless and didn’t deserve respect. I don’t think he was shown that the way to go through life was to be used and made miserable. So why is this where he is putting himself?
No one I know has had the perfect childhood. Most of us spend the rest of our lives recovering from our upbringing, in fact. And I can’t say that I’ve been a consistently assertive self-advocate who has always set appropriate boundaries. But, my God, this situation is extreme, and it breaks my heart to watch.
All I can do is say a Unitarian Universalist prayer (which, in my case, amounts to crossing my fingers) that somehow, some way, he’ll come out the other side of this sooner rather than later, having landed on his feet, and the debris all around him won’t be impossible to clear away. I hope he’ll seek therapy before, during, and after it all goes down (although he’s apparently refusing to do so at this point). I hope he’ll hear people when they tell him how loved he is.
Hoo. I can certainly hop on a tangent and ride it like a bucking bronco until it throws me off to sputter in a cloud of dust, can’t I? Sorry about that.
Back to the meme. If I were a trend setter, the thing I’d love to do is get people to stop saying, “How are you?” and instead say, “Who did you help today?” Because we all know that 99 percent of the people who ask us how we are would be shocked if we actually stopped and gave them an unvarnished, detailed response as to how we are.
Imagine you’re at the grocery store, and the cashier asks you how you are. If you respond, “Well, to be honest, this bunion is giving me fits, my wife is having an affair and I cried myself to sleep over it last night, but hey, I got a promotion, so maybe I can pay off my student loan, finally. Thanks for asking. And you?” how do you think he’d react?
Blank stare. Crickets. Probably everyone in line behind you would be slack-jawed as well. (And also a little irritated that you’re holding up the line.)
People just want us to say the mandatory, “Fine, and you?” so they can go on with whatever it is they want or need to say. It’s a ritual. An afterthought. Few people, except really close friends and compassionate loved ones, genuinely care how we are.
But if the standard question was, “Who did you help today?” I think there’d be a paradigm shift. People would start to focus on ways they could help others, and this tsunami of selfishness that seems to be crashing our shores might subside a little, over time. We might stop gazing at our navels and look about us again, and remind ourselves that we are a community.
A lovely side benefit might be that we’d learn that it’s okay to ask for help. That would be nice, because so many of us try to go it alone when we don’t have to. We might also start listening to what people actually need, rather than thinking that we know what’s best for them. (That little old lady might not have wanted to cross the street in the first place, so your helping her over there may have made things worse.)
And the beauty of asking, “Who did you help today?” is that it would be hard to make it a dismissive ritual. The responder would actually have to give that some thought, and you’d get a variety of answers (and ideas) from people throughout the day. And you’d actually be listening to, and focusing on, the person in front of you. Wouldn’t that be a nice change?
We’d have to find ways to avoid making it a competition, though. Not everyone can save Timmy from the well on a daily basis. It should be understood that even little things make a difference. “I complimented a lady’s shirt” might mean as much to that lady as “I was able to get someone out of a stuck elevator” meant to the person who was sitting there, sweaty and bored, for 3 hours. You never know.
Making this change would take courage. The first people who tried it would probably be looked at like they were crazy. They’d be laughed at, or not taken seriously. It would be easy to give up. But some people would get it. And they might start doing it, too. And perhaps it would catch on.
If it did, I bet we’d all have a decrease in blood pressure, and mental health issues would see a downward trend, because in the end, everyone just wants to feel like someone cares, that they’re not alone, and that they can make a difference. I don’t know about you, but this whole cultural gut instinct of having a total disregard for everyone but ourselves is draining me of my life force. Something has got to give.
Give. Not take. Give.
So, Dear Reader, who did you help today?
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