Thursday, May 5, 2011

I Will Try

So the other night I said something to a friend of mine that I should not have said.  This person is my closest and dearest friend.  They make it their business to go out of their way for me; they do the best they can to make my life just that much better.  In short, I wouldn’t be the woman that I am today without this person. 

Now, what I said to him was not inappropriate in and of itself.  And it wasn’t horrible as far as things go that can be said to another person.  But it was inconsiderate.  Very inconsiderate.  It was thoughtless, rude, uncalled for, and when it came out--although no intention to hurt the other person was involved--that didn’t change the fact that I hurt him. 

Now, in my defense, I had what I thought were a couple of good reasons—well, at least one—and the response I knew would follow didn’t seem to match the crime (utter silence for almost two days).  I spent the entire time focusing on how it made me feel, what it reminded me of, how much it made me want to cry.  Me, me, me!  My feelings were absolutely valid, yet in the swarm of my own valid feelings, I never stopped to consider his. 

Whilst telling him about his response’s effect on me, he had to stop me and tell me that I could not dictate his response to my actions.  I knew exactly what I thought about his response to my actions--especially after I’d already apologized to him—and I did not like it.  But who was I to tell him how to react to something that I did in the first place?  To be honest, that thought had never crossed my mind.  I was so focused on how my feelings were hurt, that it didn’t even occur to me how I’d hurt his. 

Someone who gives so much, so frequently, with no strings attached, is a giver by nature.  They do it because they want to.  They do it because they enjoy it.  They do it because they’re selfless.  Yet as giving as people like him are, they do have their limits.  And there’s nothing like a sharp slap of selfishness in the face of a selfless person to turn them off. 

In the past, I’d heard—mainly from my exes—how selfish a gal I could be at times.  And I will totally agree with them.  There were times when I flat out knew I was being selfish and would even explain why I felt entitled to my selfishness.  Other times--a lot of times--I would have what I consider a great excuse.  And in these situations, I’m never intending to hurt anyone.  But that doesn’t negate the fact that I always do. 

When it comes to the people we love, we shouldn’t always have to come up with a great excuse to make them understand how much we love them.  They should know if by our actions.  It should be unquestionable.  And for me, try though I might, it isn’t. 

Now, I can take a retrospective look and see how far I’ve come concerning my vice of selfishness.  Any ex of mine could whole-heartedly (and some grudgingly) attest to that fact.  But the more I thought about my little action, the more I realized the magnitude of the hurt I’d caused the person I love.  My little action might have seemed miniscule to you, and maybe you just had to be there.  But it was wrong.  It was very wrong.  And the more I think about the unintentional selfishness of that act, the more it breaks my heart. 

Have you ever hurt someone so badly that it hurt you because you knew how much it hurt them?  I know that’s a mouthful, but it’s the truth nonetheless.  I think in the process of maturation, we realize how our actions affect the other and that realization is a painful one.  Crushing actually.  The loved ones we hurt [usually] don’t deserve it.  Yet somehow it's always the ones closest to us that we hurt the most.  And it's in those hurtful moments that we realize how truly imperfect we are.  We realize that when we hurt our loved ones, we’re actually hurting ourselves.  

So what’s the solution to being imperfect?  Striving for perfection.  I know I’ll never actually reach it.  But at least I can try.  And that’s an effort that can be seen.  I may not always get it right, but I can try.  And when I try, those little unseemly, selfish tendencies of mine will begin to diminish.  And maybe one day, they’ll be gone altogether. That’s my hope; my goal.  But until then, I will try…                            

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