Basic Courteous Engagement

It’s Not Actually About You at All

Guess what? You aren’t really that important

Ever been reading along in Medium or wherever and come across a story that sounds very familiar? Perhaps there are components of the story that remind you of a situation in your own life. Like a story about “The Three Lousy Things My Boyfriend Did to Me”, where you feel like maybe you have done one or more of those “things” to someone?

What do you do in those circumstances? Your answer will say a lot about who you are as a person.

Once that dawning light of realization flicks on and you grasp that the article is talking about things you have done (or not done), you really have three basic choices. The first choice is whether to continue reading. It can be tough to hear how actions similar to yours might have affected another person.

A lot of folks might just decide to move on. Maybe there is a good article about squirrels, or how to bake a birthday cake. Who needs to look into their own soul really? That’s a fair option. We aren’t always all prepared to stare the demon in the face at any given point in time. Maybe you ignore it forever, maybe you decide to come back later.

Those that push on and read the rest of the piece, then have two roads they can go down. I would say that the “average” person, or most of us, would read the article and then take a moment to do some self-reflection.

It might be a real eye opener. You legitimately may not have known how your actions could or did impact someone else. Or, maybe you sort of realized it, but it wasn’t an acknowledged truth or fact; “Yeah, I might have hurt them, but I don’t really know for sure…” Perhaps this article helps you verify your suspicions and clears out the “maybe” aspect for you.

You then might take any of a range of options including apologizing to the person you hurt, to acknowledging that you need to make some changes in your life, to truly taking those actions and becoming a better person. It all depends on your unique circumstances.

However, I like to think that most of us “normal” people would react somewhere on that spectrum once we realize we hurt someone else with our actions. We take responsibility for what we have done and accept the reality that it impacted someone else. At the minimum we become aware.

But there is another type of person. That person takes a different road after reading or hearing that they had a negative impact on someone else. They strike back.

Through whatever means they try to rationalize, explain away, refute or discredit the facts of the issue. That is the first maneuver. Depending on how uncooperative the actual facts are in helping their case, they may move quickly to the next tactic; they attack the person that wrote or relayed their story. If they can’t refute the facts, they attempt to shame and disgrace the source.

Those people are narcissists. Either full-blown dyed-in-the-wool hardcore narcissists, or immature asshats demonstrating narcissistic behavioral tendencies. Either way, they are toxic people.

So how do you react when you identify with the actions that had a negative impact on someone else? Do you reflect and consider change for the better? Or do you lash out, discredit, attack and shame?

That is good information for you to keep in mind as you ponder the actual point of this article, which is:

It doesn’t really matter how you came to the realization, because that article really isn’t about you at all.

Yes, your self-realization is important, as are your actions. It is fantastic when someone else’s observations can create awareness within ourselves. Give yourself a pat on the back for realizing that your actions have consequences. Yay you.

But that article you read? It isn’t about you, it is 100% the product of and possession of the person that wrote it, or spoke it out loud, or shared by whatever means. You might have inspired it, but it isn’t yours.

Even if you know the author and you are completely sure they are talking about you; they really aren’t.

They are talking about themselves. They are using the medium of words to express their feelings. They are using the catharsis of writing to work through issues they are having. It is their story, and they are using the ability to tell it in words as a way to process events and thoughts so that they can function at a better level.

They might be using that story as an impetus to begin forgiving the person that wronged them. Or, simply processing thoughts and getting them out of their brain and on to paper, in its varied manifestations.

The point is, the fact that the person wrote the story doesn’t have anything to do with you, even if you might have been involved in the scenario that gave genesis to the story. This can be a hard concept for some people to grasp.

Even if the story is about you, it isn’t ABOUT you.

It is not yours and, most importantly, you can’t control the narration (or absence of narration) of this story.

You have no grounds to be offended when someone else writes about THEIR feelings. Moreover, I can absolutely guarantee you that the person that expressed the story was not doing it to elicit your reaction. So, don’t deign to make something that isn’t yours all about you.

Just. Don’t. Do. It.

Unfortunately for all of us, there is a certain group that has the ability to selectively not apply things to themselves. It is always, and I mean ALWAYS, someone else’s fault when things happen.

Those people won’t read this article, or if they do, they will dismiss it out of hand as something that doesn’t apply to them.

And that is a genuine shame, you know why? Because this article is intended precisely for those people. Those are the folks that are going to read someone else’s story and come unhinged and attack the person for their perspective, for their feelings, and even just for writing the story in the first place.

The very people that need this story the most will be the people that skip right by or ignore it. But that is okay. Save this article somewhere, and when some narcissistic piece of (well, you know) makes a negative comment on something your write in the future, you won’t have to say anything, just send a link to this article as your reply.

That is exactly why I wrote it.

If you like this, you might like some of my other writing:

Timothy Key spent over 26 years in the fire service as a firefighter/paramedic and various fire chief management roles. He firmly believes that bad managers destroy more than companies, and good managers create a passion that is contagious. Compassion, grace and gratitude drive the world; or at least they should. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and join the mail list.