You know what the best thing I've done for myself lately is? Eliminating any sort of contact with people who really get under my skin. It's so cleansing to get rid of the ones who bring you down. I never realized just how much some people really got to me; and Brock was so right when he told me a month or so ago that I was letting them win every time I let them get to me.
It's not that I try to rise to the bait, or that I let things get to me in a cognitively aware way, it's just a personality quirk. Even as a kid, my parents always told not to "Rise to the bait." But I am a very emotionally in tune person, and I'll admit it can be too easy for others to press my buttons.
This is where I want to give myself a pat on the back. I feel I've made some serious progress on this part of me. Even at eighteen, I was too quick to anger, and easily agitated. My friend Jake used to get such a kick out of it, because he barely had to say two things, and I'd be riled up and agitated. I'm often told I'm funny when I'm angry; but let me tell you, when you're the one getting angry it's not NEARLY so funny.
All my life, my sensitivity to others has been a problem. I've always read too much in to other people's actions and words, always taken offense when I should have sought out clarity. Jake was just one of many who found and pressed my buttons too easily for cheap entertainment. Some found them on accident, but once pressed I went off like a geyser. I stopped writing blogs while angry or agitated for those very reasons; all it did was take a bad situation and make it worse.
Isn't it amazing how much damage can be done with a few careless words, or sentences? In the book of James, the tongue is described as the rudder to a great ship. If that doesn't give you just
the perfect image on how much importance goes on what we say, than I don't know what will.
Another verse I'm fond of a friend of mine actually posted on Facebook this week:
"My experience shows that those who plant trouble and cultivate evil will harvest the same." Job 4:8 NLT
Again, I really feel this can apply to what we say. People just don't realize how much they need to
watch what they say; half the time, we don't realize when we begin planting trouble for others; anything from mild gossip to outright lies, and generalized speculations about other people. And
when we do start stirring up trouble, it comes back to us, sometimes tenfold. So, this week, I'm taking these verses to heart; because life is too short to get distracted and waste time on people who don't lift you up or enrich your life =) I like focusing on all these great things in my life and all the great people who do lift me up much better.
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