74: put down the list, shut up, and get to know the person

I saw this on Facebook and thought, "THAT is what I was about to post about!"

In The Surrendered Single, the author encouraged me to put down my list, shut up, and listen.

I've noticed that I have adopted (or maybe I've always had) a bad habit of coming up with ways to make people better. Or rather, I think, "If So-and-So would do this...and this...and that...then they wouldn't rub me the wrong way." And if they don't rub me the wrong way, then they will be a better person!

Now I don't always offer my unsolicited advice, but sometimes I do, or sometimes, when I have been recently rubbed awry, I mull over and over in my head how the offender could fix certain personality quirks or character deficiencies to be perfect.

Ie. so that they will never offend me and cause interpersonal conflict between us ever again.

Skipping past the self-centeredness of that thought for the time being, I've been attempting to try on a life-transforming new habit:

Accepting people for who they are.

Oh, isn't that such an overused phrase these days!

What I mean though is getting to know the person for the person, including their tendencies that make me cringe or feel less than blissful, and dropping the list of perfection that I unconsciously hold up as the solution to all their social woes.

There is a place for sanctification, for self-betterment, for critique, rebuke, criticism, and a dose of motherly advice.

But what would happen if I stopped measuring prospects by a list, stopped thinking I could fix people by them changing, and started getting to know people in their entirety, faults and all, and accepting the whole being, accepting the whole being without offering my list of ideas for improvement in exchange?

I might like who I become.

Alia Joy wrote a piece on Kindred Grace that more or less relates to what I just wrote. Check out the link!