Morning Devotional

January 17, 2004

"Me Me Me" 

by Don Emmitte

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Don't be selfish; don't live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. Don't think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing. (Philippians 2:3-4 NLT).

I have thought many times that the selfishness of our present culture could be overcome. The first step in overcoming the “me, me, me” selfishness is to realize that not everything is about you!

I was interested to read how a similar thought helped a woman recovering from her husband's suicide. She was in deep pain and depression. She didn't feel like going on, even though she had two children whom she dearly loved. She took an overdose herself, and ended up in the psychiatric section of the hospital for a week. She went to a therapist who finally broke through the fog and terrible grief that filled her by saying, "This has nothing to do with you. Sometimes things just happen. Your job is to recover from great loss. This isn't your fault. This is not a lesson to be learned." And somehow that was what she needed to hear as she began the excruciatingly slow journey out of depression and grief.

Your boss tears apart your latest written report. What you often don't realize is that her boss has just torn apart something she did and passes her frustration on to you. Now of course sometimes there are criticisms that we need to listen to, that we need to learn from, but there are times when we would benefit from saying, "This is not my fault. Now where do I go from here?" So it is important to be able to sort out when it is a problem you need to deal with, and when it is the other person's problem. Sometimes a second party listening ear is helpful in sorting out those kinds of things.

There are many examples we might cite. Someone cuts you off in traffic. Remind yourself: This is not about me, it is not my problem. He did not do it to make me mad or cause me problems. He's just a jerk. What is his problem? Anyone who has a dysfunctional family, abusive parents or relatives, or has a just plain difficult, hard-to-live-with family member, would do well to remember this line. When your mother criticizes your Christmas present for the 10th year in a row saying, "Whatever will I do with this? I really don't need any more sweaters," you can realize: "This isn't about me or my gift. This is my mother's problem."

It is true that you may try and fix the other person's problem, though often that doesn’t work. You can confront them, you can love them, you can care for them, but if they don't care enough to try and correct their own problem, you will only beat yourself up if you keep trying to fix the other person. And in the paradoxical way that is true of many ironies in this world, you end up fixing your own problem. You end up taking care of yourself, which helps you be a more whole person to all the loved ones around you. This kind of selflessness works to your benefit and others as well.