Not too long ago, while in the company of a dear friend, I came across an article about the importance of accepting personal responsibility for ones happiness and eagerly shared the piece with her. I had read about 1/3 of the article when suddenly my friend, (who is usually very open to these kinds of pieces) interrupted me.
“This article is terrible. I don’t want to hear any more of it,” she said.
“Well, what don’t you like about it,” I asked.
“It’s just awful,” she responded.
“But what about it is awful?” I pressed.
“Just the whole thing is terrible,” she said.
Normally, I would not have pushed. I would have stopped reading and moved on but I had an ulterior motive in sharing this piece with my friend, a person I love very much, but someone who has a heck of a time accepting responsibility for things that happen to her. If she hurts your feelings, you’re too sensitive or you flat-out misheard her. If she doesn’t get a position, someone is against her. If she does something she gets angry at you for, there’s a better reason for it and she deserves to be forgiven.
Now, don’t get me wrong, there are many good qualities held by my friend and she’s not always impossible but there is a definite issue with blame-shifting. Her reaction to the article was very strong, and having had responses of my own in the past, I felt that it was the message, not the article, that seemed “terrible” to her.
I confessed that I thought she might gain something from reading it in that we all have our own issues with accepting that we are in control of ourselves and our lives. She respected this as she is someone who has no issue with letting me know when I need to work on something (and I love her for it).
We spoke a few minutes about the initial terror that often comes when we recognize that we yield that kind of power can be terrifying but also liberating. After a few sentences, my friend seemed very closed to the idea of discussing it any further and I dropped it but continued to think of the ways in which I had discarded responsibility in my own life. A few days later, my friend came to me and confessed that the article hit home and she felt embarassed and ashamed (something I think we can all relate to) and that she wanted to work on this issue. “What a big step,” I thought. How many times have we just thrown our issues back into the closet and told ourselves we would “deal with them later.” My friend was an inspiration!
How comfortable are you with the idea that you choose how to live your life, manage your relationships and react to hardships and disappointments?
How open to change are you?
How do you deal with the “teflon” people in your life who won’t allow anything to stick to them?
It sounds like a friend of mine, who would often get defensive in situations like this and oppose the ideas very harshly. Perhaps she was in a bad mood, not up for the article at the time.