A reflection on majoring in the minors
This column reflects the opinions of its author, Sarah Hudson Pierce.
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What happens when we major in the minors?
By that I mean: when we pick on our spouses, our parents, our children or our friends for what we perceive as faults, when we cannot back off and leave well enough alone, when we keep nit-picking at someone, maybe we need to ask ourselves if this is what is really bugging us. Or do we have a deep-seated problem that we cannot articulate?
“Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care,” as Theodore Roosevelt is often said to have said.
Or, as the poet Robert Burns said: “Oh would some Power the gift give us, to see ourselves as others see us."
Many of us could benefit from deep soul searching or counseling to help us arrive at a mutually satisfying solution to problems that keep us awake day and night, when we cannot let go and just laugh at our own pettiness.
Many of our personal problems arrive from a lack of self-worth, from not feeling pretty enough or deeply loved by our friends, family, spouse. So we criticize each other, trying to make others fit our mold of how we think people should behave.
It is hard to get to the root of our problems, to learn to control our tongues and our actions, and to learn to love unconditionally.
There's one thing I know for sure. No one likes to be belittled or made to believe that "it's our way or the highway."
Many of the crises that occur in churches, in work-places and in government arise from problems within the home, between husbands and wives.
We find it hard to see our problems for what they are. We want to cast blame on someone else instead of letting well enough alone.
No one wants to be bossed around. We each deserve to do our own thing unless we infringe on someone else's rights.
Maybe this is where many of these issues arise, from someone feeling like that they are not being consulted in major decisions. And, of course, most of these decisions seem to come back to money.
Though only an arm-chair psychologist, I find myself sometimes caught in the middle and just want to give a friend or loved one the idea that counseling might be in order. It often is hard to see the real root of our problems.
Harmony is so much more important than conflict. It's so much better to take care of those we have in our relationships than to cast care to the wind and not show understanding to those we cherish most.
It is like a good friend once wrote: "If you criticize your friends, you will find yourself all alone."
That's some of the best advice I've heard.
Maybe we just need to ask God for wisdom.
We mostly want to just be loved unconditionally.
Sarah Hudson Pierce lives near Mooringsport. Contact her at sarahp9957@aol.com.
More by Sarah Hudson Pierce
An act of loving kindness that shaped a life for decades more
Lessons learned from Walden's Pond: Simplify, focus
Therapy in transparent writing
What good does it do to have a voice if we don't use it?