Something Else: A New Way of Relating

Transcript

Or a new way of relating.

I was thinking the other day about those old Seinfeld episodes from the 90s where they have these discussions like if you have gone out on 3 dates with a person is it ok to do it over telephone or can you do it in person?

And something has changed very much since that time, even then in that show, you are trying to avoid what we call effective responsibility. To diminish the value of the relationship they say well it was just a short term thing and maybe we can evade the respect these people deserve by not going out to lunch to have a hard conversation.

It changes to the telephone and then it changes to text.

Its what I have witnessed over the course of my life and eventually changes to ghosting. People don’t even respond.

Its something valuable that has been lost.

Maybe people have been doing this for a long time and this is just the current manifestation of these things.

There is something special about treating others precisely, treating others with care.

I have seen these cultural changes, I have seen these things, there are even these articles saying that ghosting is somehow more responsible or more respectful of someones feelings.

This upside down topsy turvy back to front clown world type of stuff we can see when we look around.

If someone pauses to tell the truth then they might be brushed aside.

If we say the obvious that treating someone with respect is treating someone with respect.

To talk to somebody, to discuss our feelings and have these difficult conversations. That is something that makes us more human, that gets left aside.

I don’t want to live in a world like that, I want something else.

I want care, respect, love, communication, even if it’s a relationship that might only last for 3 dates, with our presence, with our sweet transformative presence and with our values and with our desire to be authentic we can make the difference in our lives and the lives of others.

We can say, what do you expect? Here is what I expect, here is what I want and find the way to treat the time we have with others as precious if it last a few hours or if it lasts a lifetime because of course how will we ever get to a lifetime if we can’t those hours as precious, those minutes, those people worthy of our respect and worthy of sin.

Deserving of our finest gifts, showing our hearts in those moments when it matters most.

I don’t want to treat people carelessly. I don’t want to seduce. I am not in any position to judge. What I want is something else and I suspect I am not the only one, I suspect a lot of people out there are hungry for real human connection. When we make a lifetime of easy decisions what do we expect to end up with?

If we take the time to make this difficult decisions, have those difficult conversations and tell people the truth when its not always easy for us to confront. What do you think will happen?

Something wonderful will happen, I don’t know exactly what it will look like but I know the value of the truth is so profound that it will transform, that it must transform us.

That is what we will find when we give something else.