Against the Definition of You.
Along time ago I read of an African village where they practiced a very different form of societal control when it came to dealing with people who had ‘broken the law’. I have no idea if this is true or not, (I suspect it isn’t) but the idea of it struck me so profoundly that I have never forgotten it.
The story goes that the offending person was taken out into a field, and for two days people from the village would come and talk with the offender. Their goal wasn’t to punish them. Rather, they spent their time telling the offender good things about them (the offender).
The idea was to create in that person an identity that was so strongly based in good things, that they would hesitate and eventually choose not to do things that were considered bad.
I’ve loved that idea ever since.
As we have raised our two children, we tried to follow this ideal. Although we didn’t have two days to sit and talk with them whenever they did something wrong, we tried to create in them the understanding that they were a good person, a kind person, a loving person, an honest person.
Our goal was to instill in them a kind of nobility of character, where they always knew that they had a choice, but that choosing the right was always going to be their path, because it was a reflection of who they were.
Maybe I’m biased (of course I am) but I have two wonderful boys who are growing up to be really good men. Not perfect, but kind, hard working and compassionate.
I’m not sure how we knew exactly how it was going to work, but I always sensed that building them up into someone who was good was always going to work better than tearing them down into someone who was bad.
For once, it seems that my instincts were correct.
I have seen parenting done the other way, with loud voices, harsh words and disdainful faces. All this transmits to the ‘offender’ is that the conduct they are accused of is exactly the type of person they are, leading to a fulfillment of that communication.
The offender, believing that they are bad, does bad things because that is ‘who they are’.
And a terrible seed grows in their heart.
And so in the midst of this thought, I would ask you…Who are you? Are you a loving person, a kind person, a compassionate person, a giving person? If I truly wish to know, all I would have to do would be to watch you for a while, because each of us acts out our identity in our day to day actions, and especially in the way that we treat others.
But the chances are that you are who you are because you were told you were that way.
Yes, we all arrive on this good earth with our own temperament, and our own weaknesses, but I’ve found that when I treat people as if they are good, they seem to live up to my expectations more often than not.
And when I love them regardless of how they treat me, they seem to listen to me more than when I treat them otherwise.
Today, I ask you to treat the people around you as if they are all good, and to accept their flaws as simply that; a flaw in a diamond, rather than seeing their flaw as a definition of their whole.
Who knows whose life you could change today.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings