Agape Misjudged

In the past when people acted displeased with me, I tended to try to ask them and find out why they were apparently unhappy with me. This tended to backfire, sometimes quite nastily. Consequently, nowadays when someone mysteriously (to me) becomes unhappy with me, I typically leave it alone. There are some exceptions, but it's on a case by case basis and my general rule is to just give the people space.

Space for someone to be who they are and work out their own experience in life is a gift, I think and perhaps one that's not given often enough. I do not mean ignoring people of course, or being aloof to them. The Ancient Greek word for love of one's neighbor is called agape and it's this that I have tried to realize.

However, yesterday I realized that what I thought was polite and caring is perhaps misunderstood by most people to be exactly what I didn't want it to be: aloof and snubbing, and naturally this made me a little upset because I might be unintentionally telling people I don't care about them, when in reality it was precisely the opposite.

When this person told me about how I'd been, I realized that not only had I been giving off the exact opposites of my sentiments, but that there was some merit in what she said.

For one thing, people have sometimes said I'm cold, mostly in the fact that I don't smile a lot. It's true that I'm not a big smiler, but I do hold a lot of people in my heart, some who probably don't realize it. Most of us can say this. I do come off as a bit abrupt sometimes, but after years of looking at it, this might just be a personality trait, like how some people are silly or more intense or fond of a certain brand of humor. I think I've become a bit softer over time (and I'm still young) but that's simply a quality I have; nothing is intended to be implied by it.

Frequently when people acted upset around me, my usual default setting is that I must have done something to upset them, or they didn't like me for some reason. As everyone wants to be liked, my coping method for the age-old "Why don't they like me?" has been to simply leave them be and let life continue. I don't think this is a bad plan but I finally saw a flaw so simple that I overlooked it for a long time: I really have no idea what people are going through and whether or not I did anything at all to them.

As a person with rather absorbent skin, every cutting remark or poor reaction sinks in and becomes hard for me to shake. Often I hope I'll eventually grow out of them or forget them somehow. Along the path of life I fell into meditation practices which I previously never felt drawn to. But life has a mind of its own and through a kind of meditation I've found myself less and less bothered by things. Reactions can still sting, but the hook doesn't go as deep and I don't dwell on other people's comments or actions as much as I used to. Interestingly, I find myself spontaneously being more smiley, as well.

:-)

This is also a sense of space, but in this case, giving myself a sense of space rather than letting than trying to examine and pick at everything in the mind.

I'll continue to give people their space, but I'll try to remember that perhaps I've simply misjudged them. If what I've done has been interpreted as rude or aloof, then certainly another approach is needed.

But to anyone reading this who thought I was snubbing them or somehow rude, this is my apology. It was only a misunderstanding; it was never my intent to insult you, and I'm sorry if I gave you that impression.

Most sincerely,
Tristan