Eliminate Expectations

You can’t independently council or advise someone if you have expectations of the outcome.  It gets even harder if you prefer one outcome over another.  When you come in with expectations, there is a subconscious tendency to influence the situation to your benefit.  Putting aside expectations is not an easy task; it requires you to tap into your inner wisdom rather than your ego.  

Listen

Seems obvious, and it is.  So why do we have so much trouble doing it?  I’m not talking about waiting until your friend is done talking and then responding; I’m talking about thinking about nothing else except what is being said while your friend is talking.  Listening means not anticipating the next word out of their mouth, forming your response before the statements are finished, or searching your history for a “time when that happened” to you.  

Don’t Offer Advice

Didn’t see that one coming, did you?  Instead, offer questions.  In most cases, it is impossible for you to know what’s best for someone else.  To one of my earlier posts, you shouldn’t can’t solve someone else’s problem.  Inner wisdom, or Judgment, in alignment with spirit will empower you to ask the right questions.  Well formed questions provide greater context in which to consider.  Remember though, you can’t ask the right questions until you’ve eliminated expectations.

What is the right answer when one individual looks at something and sees it as absolutely fine, and another sees the same things but as somehow lacking?  By my definition, the one that sees the situation as lacking is the one who has the problem.  What responsibility does the one who sees things as fine have on thier plate?  I think it depends on the relationship.  Unfortunately though, it can be a bit complicated.

On one hand, we are all closely related – we are all ONE.  There are many, many people who do not subscribe to this belief.  For those that do, our responsibility is to help others to the extent that assisting them:

1. doesn’t cloud our vision or cause us to forget that we are part of ONE.
2. is done out of Love and in alignment Spirit.
3. helps them get closer to remembering that they are part of ONE.

For those that don’t subscribe to that belief, our responsibility depends on how we label the relationship:

• For a spouse or other loved one, likely our responsibility is to help them.  This could be out of Love, or it could be out of appeasement.  Or self preservation.  Or family harmony, of one sort or another.
• For a friend, likely our responsibility is also to help but it will be offered on a less urgent basis than the previous.  I might put coworker in this bucket as well, but helping them might also depend on how it advances one’s own career.
• Outside these groups, likely our responsibility is to do nothing.

I’m busy.  My wife is busy.  Even my daughter is busy.  Therefore, things around the house sometimes aren’t done to the level that one or more of us would like.  So the others, assuming we’re all closer to the ONE side of the split above, help out – whether we understand it or not.  We all just accept it.

• Mine
• Someone Else’s
• No one’s

My Problems

These are problems that I have created, either directly or indirectly.  They are problems that have occurred due to my action or inaction, and therefore are completely in my purview to fix.  They are, however, also the most difficult to fix.  Why?  They often require me to change my perspective or my thinking, and that can be quite a challenge.  

Occasionally, I perceive my problems to be someone else’s.  When that happens, I’m forced to step back and consider.  If my next brilliant idea falls flat on it’s face for example, I’m just as likely to think the idea must have been flawed as I am to think no one understood it and therefore they are all idiots.  The reality is that it’s a combination of things that caused it to fail, but that list doesn’t include “they’re all idiots”.

Someone Else’s

Given the above discussion, the definition of someone else’s problem should be clear.  

The challenge with these problems is that I often make them into my problem.  If someone around me is having a bad day, I might make it my goal to fix it for example.  Helping others is nice of course, but making their problems into mine is not helping anyone.  In the end, I can’t fix their bad day – only the person having the bad day can fix it.

No One’s

These problems are the ones that occur day to day and that no one can do anything about.  Death, tornado, earthquake, and the like.  There is nothing to be gained by struggling against these things, yet many people worry about them on a regular basis.  True, we can do things to predict them, slow them or in other ways impact them, but in the end they will and do occur.  I believe that struggling against them is futile and a waste of effort.