“It’s not about me.”

“What’s that?”

“I can’t believe I didn’t see this before.  It’s not about me.  It never has been about me.”

The young girl grabbed her purse and jumped into her car and began driving.  As she was focusing on her next action, she kept repeating to herself.  “It’s not about me.”

She pulled up to her house and ran inside.  Her husband was sitting at the table reading the newspaper and drinking his morning coffee.

“Hi honey,”  he said with a smile.

“I can’t believe it, but I figured it out.”

“Figured out what?”

“Oh nothing.  How would you like some eggs and toast?”

“That would be wonderful.”

As the girl cooked breakfast for the both of them, she realized that everything had all been in her own head.  Her husband was the same man that she had married a few short years ago.  She was the same women that he married as well.  They were in this relationship to grow together and to change together.  If all went well, they would grow old together and live out this life in the relationship.

As he ate the delicious breakfast, he smiled at her with the smile that caught her eye when they had met.  She glanced back at him, with a timid smile of her own.

“I love you,”  he said with endearment.

“Ditto.”

The two of them left for work and met up later that evening.

“When we have a disagreement, I realized this morning after my work out, that it’s not about me.  Nothing is ever about me.”

Confused, the husband listened intently.

“What I mean is.  We always think that people are intentionally trying to hurt us, or to one-up us.  It’s natural to think that I guess, and some people maybe are trying to do those things.  However, the people who I love, and those that love me back would never do anything like that.  It only looks that way – sometimes.  But, what I realized this morning is that you will always love me and would never do anything intentionally that would hurt me, or make me feel sad.”

“Yes, that’s true.  I love you and sometimes I may not say the right thing, or more likely, I say the wrong thing, but my intent is never to project harm.  I would lay down my life for you.”

“I realize that it is not just in personal relationships as well.  Today at work, I had a whole different mindset, which affected my attitude.  I was no longer buying into the pettiness, but rather, I realized that there was no pettiness in the first place.  It was all made up in my head, because I was insecure in how well I was doing.  Now, I realize I am a great employee and do good work.  I’m giving it my all, and if that’s not good enough then I guess that job wasn’t meant for me. ”

“That’s interesting.  I guess I should start doing that as well.  It seems that if we are always genuine and live with integrity, that should be good enough in all of our work and personal relationships.  If not, I guess it’s not a match.”

“Let’s make a pact.  No matter how things get, we will always be genuine and live this marriage with integrity and honesty.  If we know that our relationship is built on those values, we should never have reason to doubt each other.  Without that doubt, we will be able to interpret actions and behaviors from that core set of values.”

The couple smiled again at each other as they retired for the evening.

Ω

InspiraCard

When we begin to look for the intent in the relationships that we have, we can more easily overlook the appearances that might point an insecure person in another direction.

Written, Thu, Mar 31, 2106, 8:10 – 8:24 AM MDT