The things that we want we willingly believe, and the things that we think we expect everyone else to think. Julius Caesar
Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.
George Patton
The session began… Apparently, nobody read the instructions1 -I think- It is clear what we are supposed to do. However, I’ve decided to take a different role. This time I will not try to lead, nor try to talk the group into doing what I believe we ought to be doing.
We began wandering, someone starts hypothesizing about what should we do, since we do not have a task ahead, …but we DO have a task ahead, we are supposed to observe the group, whatever that may mean… So we start talking about how we feel. Somebody actually expresses relief that we do not have to do anything, and puzzlement about the strange feeling of being compelled to do something.
Finally I talk, don’t remember exactly what I said, but I am starting to feel anxious; nobody seems to realize that we are supposed to be observing the group! Still, I am being aware of myself and observing that little voice inside me that starts yelling: do something! Show them how it is done… …no, I am going to resist it. I’ll keep observing the group, even if no one else does… I notice that my desire to put order does not derive a need for reassurance, but from a painful, eagerly need for purpose, direction. …I must learn to be tolerant, trust the process…
I can’t stand this pointless wandering any longer! I know! I’ll make a subtle suggestion, hopefully they’ll get it and we can continue from there… “Why don’t each of us tell the rest what he/she thinks the group is doing” … that should suffice…
….nop, it didn’t. For a second it appeared to me that we were going somewhere but again, somebody is ranting about things that are completely beyond the point… My stomach burns… this could go on for the whole class, I’d better do something… …I know, I did not want to, but somebody has to do it…
…
Well, at the end the session went ok –or so I think- the group, with or without my enlightened ideas and valuable insights (I’m being ironic), was able to make a decision and do something together. I’ll find out more about it soon enough.
What really surprised me (even though I was aware of it) is how easily I felt uncomfortable (to say the least) with what was going on. I discovered myself intolerant, impatient, a know-it-all; with a kind of “I know better” attitude.
I’ve been there before! More times that I would like to accept. However, this is the first time that I am aware of it. I usually pointed at the rest “why they don’t get it, if it is so simple?”
Are we all like that? Probably not, but I suspect that many times, when someone or something exasperates us, is because deep inside we think that we in fact know better. There is a little dictator within yelling “show them! show them! What about the other side of the coin? Why do we like somebody? Isn’t it because she/he agrees implicit or expressly with the way, we see the world? Don’t many of us tend to divide society between “us” and “them” When does animosity begin? Could it be when we stop being tolerant, when we want to show “them” how things should be done?
From where does it come from? It occurs almost automatically! When did we –or at least I– develop it? Curiously enough, it is a feature that we’d certainly disapprove in others, but we usually have. We would benefit very much from being more aware of it; I would anyway…
Or maybe I just did not like to find it so painfully rooted within me and I’m just trying to share it with the world. I guess misery likes company.
- My thoughts will be in italics, words actually uttered are between “quotation marks ↩︎
