Your Mental Wealth

We were going to spend some time at the home of a family member. While it would be good to see them, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to 72 hours of political indoctrination, commentary, a TV set that was always on and where only one “Fair and Balanced” TV channel was permitted to be viewed. This is a place where I felt I needed to be really careful to not mention some taboo topic that might provoke “an incident” with Mr. A.

As I was thinking about how I was going to manage this “opportunity”, I thought, “You know, I bet that his world is organized in his mind in such a way that everything he does and believes makes perfect sense to him.” (His wife’s world view was 180 degrees from his, and aligned with my thinking or my world view, which makes her a ‘good’ person and obviously good friend material, right? I often say that my friends are the people who share the same mythical beliefs about and distortions of life that I do). His behaviors are just a reflection of his beliefs; what magazines and newspapers he reads or won’t, what TV shows/networks he watches or won’t, what radio stations/networks he listens to or won’t, what politicians he believes are doing a great job or not, what conspiracy theories he does/doesn’t have faith in, who the good/bad guys are etc.).

THIS IS JUST LIKE ME! In that moment, I realized I am just like Mr. A. I have organized my world and justify my behaviors based on my belief system and am as biased as he is.

I thought “Hey, instead of wrestling with this guy for 72 hours, trying to point out the flaws in his way of viewing the world and trying to convince him my view is more valid, what about going with the spirit of an alien who has just landed on earth and is collecting information about life and has no judgments about what he hears?”

Now I started getting excited about seeing Mr. A. I could hardly wait to get there to start “learning”. As I remember it, when I told my bride about my plan she came really close to rolling her eyes…..

It didn’t take long for my education to begin. After picking us up from the airport Mr. A plopped himself down on the sofa saying “I don’t want to be impolite but this is my favorite program and I’d really like to watch it, I hope you don’t mind”. “Alright, I thought”, mentally rubbing my hands in anticipation like a brain surgeon who can’t wait to take a peek inside the guy on the gurney.

In my best Columbo investigative spirit (for those of you who don’t remember the TV show, Columbo was a detective who always found his man or woman by pretending to be really stupid-something I don’t have to try to hard to do), I said “Tell me what makes this your favorite program”. At first Mr A. was a bit defensive, probably thinking I was going to use whatever information he gave me as a way to tell him how wrong he was. (I am not saying that I wasn’t thinking as he began talking to me-and at other times throughout the weekend-, “You’ve got to be $%&*(@+I^* me). But I was able to let that thought go, remember I was just supposed to collect data, and allow him to make his case. Part of the commentary on the show was about the controversial choices the President had recently made. I asked Mr. A. how he felt about that. He told me. I didn’t make any comments of my own about what I thought, and when I was tempted to I remembered my promise to myself that I was there to learn that weekend not preach, convert, or defend.

As the weekend progressed, I learned more and more. The conversations got deeper and deeper. What I came to understand was HOW Mr. A had arrived at his beliefs. When I heard his story, I could imagine that if I had lived his experiences (he had lost parents to a dictator, he had come out of a political and social system that was very challenging) I might have needed to organize my beliefs and life the very same way. I started looking more and more forward to these conversations. I was on full receiver mode.

It turned out to be a great weekend. I found the experience to be totally fascinating. I felt like I walked away from that weekend with an incredible gift. An inside look at what the world looked like through someone else’s eyes. Their world and the way they had it organized made as much sense and was just as consistent for them as my world and the way I had organized it was to me.

We recently spent a day at the Museum of Appalachia near Knoxville (Like all museums, it has lots of artifacts; what is unique about this museum is that nearly every one of them has a story that accompanies it; where it came from, who’s it was, when, why, for whom it was made, how it was acquired, the relationship between the previous owner and the museum’s creator, etc.). It was an incredible experience. It is a very unique museum experience, and I walked away feeling like I had been given an incredible gift of being able to see inside the lives and minds of very special people.

That’s the way I felt about my weekend with Mr. A. I had just been given an opportunity to see the world from another point of view (simply by keeping my mouth shut and listening). I found myself understanding more, judging less and walking away with the awareness (and new goal for myself) that I need to remember that everyone organizes their world in the way that they need to, in order to have life make sense, in order to feel freedom from fear, in order to answer the unanswerable questions.

My new mantra? “Everyone’s world view makes as much sense to them, as mine does to me. If I can’t see or understand it, I am not listening well enough.”

Now I would like to report that I have reached the state of mental wellness that I never get hooked by someone’s behavior or beliefs. That I never argue, defend, preach, and try to change someone else’s view of the world as they see it. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Sometimes, I can’t maintain enough emotional distance. I have a horse in the race. I am working on that.

Some of you may be wondering if Mr. A ever asked me about how I saw things. Nope. I didn’t have that on my agenda, so I wasn’t disappointed.

Some of you may be wondering how things have been between Mr. A and me since that weekend. Actually I never saw Mr. A again. He is now gone from my life. He died suddenly one morning. His wife told me that he had talked about our “special weekend” together. He told her he loved me. I have a sense he didn’t say that about a lot of people.

An unexpected gift, a beautiful gift because I chose to listen?