Are You Being Watched?

Pausing to Reflect On How You Come Across

No, this isn’t an article about government surveillance, I have no qualification to write on that! It’s about taking a moment to reflect on how people perceive you. Are you a person that allows your beliefs to make you compassionate and helpful, or critical and unapproachable. I hope the former.

Photo by Bobby Mc Leod on Unsplash

I’ve seen and heard people be real ugly lately.

For one of my jobs these days, I’m driving people around the area—it’s like Uber, but for rich people. And instead of driving my Honda CR-V (which is totally awesome at 212,000 miles!), I’m driving expensive cars and SUVs.

Sometimes I’ll pick people up from their private jet and drive them to a Vikings or Timberwolves game, to dinner, or to a business meeting. Sometimes I just take people home from wherever in the world they’ve been.

For the most part, people are awesome.

But there have been a couple of times where I’ve had to listen to a passenger behind me BERATE someone over the phone, using words I’ve never even considered using. They hang up and then the next call is to someone at home, their tone and emotion drastically changing. A different, more caring, loving character.

Maybe we all have different characters we play based on our varying agendas.

If you know me at all, you can imagine that I’ll usually ask myself, “I wonder why they act that way?”

We are living in days where outrage gets attention. Where instilling fear in someone helps you to get what you want from them.

I heard one of these bereaters comment, “I’m sorry if you don’t like me, I’m just being myself, just telling it like it is.” As if they’re admitting they are physically unable to be kind, or at least have no desire to be so.

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been really trying to post positive, hope-filled things online…

But sometimes you post a phrase like “love your neighbor” and people get mad because they are people who choose to qualify who receives their love and care. “You can’t just willy-nilly love someone, they just might continue carrying on their sinful behavior,” they intone.

I’ve been trying to post stories about what is happening here in Minnesota, and because it doesn’t match up with their party line, they resort to name-calling. (or they just unsubscribe from this newsletter…which is fine, by the way, I get it!)

Maybe you know someone who has an ugly side of them that sneaks out from time to time, and you’re not quite sure what to do about it, if anything. When in doubt, love.

Some of these “mean” people don’t see themselves as “mean” or “arrogant.” Which also means they are unaware of the message they are sending to the people around them. They have a character they play behind the safety of their keyboard or phone.

Let me ask you this…

Are you showing the people closest to you that you are a person who can be trusted with a secret? Or that you would treat them with compassion if they admitted to a big mistake? Or if someone you loved held a belief that was different than your own, would your heart be big enough to still hold space for them?

Would they feel unconditional love from you? Or would you have to let them know how much you disagree with them. Like this: “I still love you, but…”

My faith has taught me that God loves me with an unconditional love. And that it’s that realizing of how deeply loved I am, that provides the environment for me to change the parts of me that aren’t life-giving or love-bearing.

And by providing an environment of unconditional love to others, we show ourselves to be trustworthy of people’s stories, to be invited into the intimate parts of their lives, not in order to change them, but to find new ways to love them.

Maybe it’s easier to be ugly, to push people away, to not have to do the hard work of loving or helping other people.

But when I think about how much it has made my life more beautiful, more generous, more connected, I can’t imagine doing life any other way.

When in doubt, love.