Are you a good grudge keeper? About a week ago I started thinking about a common thing that people seem to do – and two possible alternatives.
Most of the time I think we tick along in life relatively happily but when someone cheeses us off – up pops this scrolling, itemized and dot-pointed list of things this person has done previously that have hurt, annoyed or irritated us.
If you’ve been to even just a few weddings in your life you’ve likely heard a piece of prose known as “The Love Chapter” – the way I memorized it when I was young includes the phrase “Love does not keep a record of wrongs”
Hmmm. Double hmmm. Yes, well, so anyway…
The two flip sides I began thinking about are these:
1. How many of us have corresponding, named windows in our brains that lists all the ways we ourselves have hurt, annoyed or irritated others? If we do at all, I recon that scrolling list would have very few dot points and wouldn’t scroll very far at all. We really seem to be hard wired to maintain differing standards for self and others.
2. What if love – not keeping a record of wrongs – actually then kept a record of rights? Not rights, as in entitlements – but rights as in the opposite of wrongs.
So I decided to begin physically noting down a record of rights. And wow. This last week has amazed me.
On several occasions when I was slipping into introspective self-minded blueness, someone has done or said something that specifically spoke into my thoughts. If I hadn’t decided to write my ‘record of rights’, I’d have still been thankful, but because I am building a physical list, I am more attuned and my socks are being totally blessed off my feet.
If you are sick of the mouse wheel of offense… it only takes a few minutes a day to record the rights that come your way. I promise it’ll make you smile when you begin to see the thread.