|
Bonds
That Make Us Free, Part 26: Doing the Right Thing
by
C. Terry Warner
The Right
Thing for the Right Reason
To
stop betraying ourselves is obviously the most direct way out of
the emotional and psychological messes that self-betrayal creates.
By ceasing self-betrayal we abandon our reasons for accusing others
in our hearts. And when accusation ceases, we are able to see others
as they really are and to love them.
But ceasing
to do wrong requires more than merely abstaining from certain actions,
though that is essential. It also requires doing right. If we don't
take positive steps to do right when we feel we should, we instantly
plunge back into the emotionally dark business of wrongdoing. Not
doing right when we know what's right is doing wrong.
And, in fact,
one of the best strategies for escaping the emotional troubles we've
been talking about in this book is simply to do what we honestly
perceive to be the right thing to do.
But how is this
possible? Haven't we been saying that, when we're living in an I-It
mode, we can at best produce actions that counterfeit the good things
we should be doing? How then can we self-betrayers ever do
something that's genuinely good?
The story I'm
about to share came from a middle-level information technology manager
named Benson. Up to the time when the story unfolds, he had only
two interests in life—his work and playing his drums in a band
that performed three or four nights a week. New software strategies
filled his head whenever he wasn't mending, polishing, or playing
his drums. Virtually absent from his life experience was any concern
about the needs and interests of other people. Yet, as his story
shows, he did something genuinely good. The fact that someone who
had been self-absorbed for a lifetime could act according to his
deepest sense of what was right supports my contention that each
of us is capable of this, even if we start out not wanting to.
We've had a
major project to network our systems to our vendors on one end and
our outlets on the other. Our profits have been slipping and this
would help us meet our projections. The whole company was depending
on us. We'd turn out the heroes or the goats.
But we run into
all kinds of problems. Then Eric, our smartest software guy, can't
stay past 5:00 for two nights in a row because his boy had a birthday,
first, which I thought was pretty lame, and then his wife has to
go into the hospital. Nuts! By now I'm pretty crabby because I'd
missed a lot of sleep with no end in sight.
That was Wednesday.
Friday the band had lined up one of its best ever gigs and I could
see me missing it. Next day we aren't making any progress and Eric
gets a call saying his wife is worse. He's got to go and I hear
him calling around to see if he can drop his kids off at people's
houses. When he goes out he's embarrassed and says he'll come in
as early as he can, but he'll have to pick up his kids and feed
them and see how his wife is doing. As far as I'm concerned my gig's
completely out the window.
About 7:30 I
catch a few minutes' sleep and when I wake up, I can see just as
clear as day how ugly I've been to Eric. He needed someone to help,
not someone to beat him up. I drive to the hospital and say, "Look,
the last thing you need is to worry about anything besides your
family. I'll take care of the project till you can come in."
Next day I'm
dragging and discouraged but I think, I bet Eric's got more troubles.
So I go back to the hospital and sure enough, it looks like his
wife might not make it. Even though it's Friday I say to him, "I'll
help you. I'll pick up your kids after school and take care of them."
When I say this a powerful feeling I've never felt before comes
on me and I have to control myself. He's pretty emotional too and
says I'm the only person who has really wanted to help him. He tells
me about how his wife has been sick for years and all his troubles.
While he's talking
it's like he morphs into a different person right before my eyes,
from someone letting me down into someone who really matters to
me, and taking care of his troubles gets bigger and more important
to me than the project at work and even the gig that I'd looked
forward to so much. It was like I could see his soul, like all of
a sudden I had something really important to be doing with my life.
Clearly, what
Benson did wasn't a counterfeit kind of goodness. We know this from
the change that took place in his attitude. Though prior to his
kind actions he had been thoroughly self-absorbed, he came to an
awareness of the right thing to do and did it.
How did he do
it? How could he do a genuinely good thing when Philip I, self-
righteously cleaning the house, could only produce a counterfeit?
And Glen, with his plucky Christmas industriousness, could only
produce a counterfeit? And I, "trying my best" to react
maturely when Matthew was making demands of me, could only produce
a counterfeit?
There are two
answers to these questions, two significant differences between
Benson and the three men I mentioned. First, though initially he
could not act out of love for his colleague because he did not yet
love him, he nevertheless could do something that wasn't
self-absorbed. He could do the right thing simply because it was
right—because that was how he felt he ought to act.
And that is
precisely what he did. He had been upset with Eric. Then, after
his nap, he felt bad about it. He realized he had been in the wrong.
This is the second way he differed from Philip I, Glen, and me;
he said to himself, "I can see how ugly I've been to Eric.
He needed someone to help, not someone to beat him up." This
self-honesty enabled him to appreciate Eric's plight and then want
to help. At this point he had not yet experienced that surge of
feeling and respect that came later, so these could not have motivated
him to the degree that they did later on. Primarily, he went to
the hospital the first time just because it was right.
Much of this
and the two subsequent sections will be devoted to the important
role played by the two things Benson did that enabled him to escape
the box—he did the right thing because it was right, and he
honestly confessed that up to that point he had been doing wrong.
We will discuss these two factors in that order.
Integrity
Leads to Love
Though doing right because it's right may not immediately give
rise to respect and love, as it did in Benson's case, the chances
are that respect and love will come if we persist—even in hard
cases.
By doing right
because it is right, we divest ourselves of the reasons we have
had for finding fault and thus open ourselves to be affected by
the truth about others—to see them as they are, to understand
their worried and anxious interpretation of what is happening.
As they thus become more real and important to us, we become more
concerned for them and are able at last to do the right thing not
just because it's right, but also out of love.
This was Benson's
experience exactly. He started out irritated with Eric. He got a
little rest and then in one of those stunning acts of self-honesty
of which we all are capable he admitted to himself that he had not
been kind to Eric. So he did what he felt he ought to do to help
him. Then the following day, even though tired, he went further
and visited the hospital again. It was then that he opened himself
up to be influenced by another being's inner reality, and respect
and love awakened in him.
Notice that
when we're thus awakened to the reality of another soul, our
desires and our duty toward others come together; we delight
in serving them as we feel we should. Benson's story serves as a
testament to that fact. From his initial I-It point of view, he
couldn't imagine how this could be—he thought nothing could
be less interesting or exciting, or more disruptive and annoying.
But that's because he couldn't comprehend love while he remained
self-absorbed. He could not imagine what advantage he could
find in merely doing what love dictates, whereas when his heart
changed it became a matter of utmost urgency.
A Step We Can
Take
I want
to illustrate the power of doing the right thing because it is right
with a story that differs from Benson's in a crucial and very instructive
respect. Awareness of another's soul and the respect and love that
attend it do not take the author of the story by surprise, as they
did Benson. The author longed for that love, but in spite of a great
deal of effort found it very difficult to attain. Yet in the end
his persistence paid off.
As part of the
work of the Arbinger Institute, several individuals were preparing
to teach some of the materials presented in this book. They were
struggling to bring to their teaching the right kind of heart. Like
most of us, they had assumed that teaching means adopting the role,
the posture, the social position, and the mask of the teacher. This
kept them from being real to, and reaching the hearts of, their
students. Like many people in every walk of life—administrators,
performers, counselors, artists, and parents—they couldn't
quite forget themselves. Given a chance to teach their students,
they could manage only to teach their subject.
One of these
teachers, Doug, seemed unable to shed his particular burden of self-concern.
For several years prior to the time of this story he had been struggling
through an unreconciled conflict with a colleague. He had tried
for years to resolve their differences, doing thoughtful things
for the man, apologizing for misunderstandings, holding himself
back for fear of offending—all to no avail. "Still there
remained between us a tension," he wrote, "a binding yet
repelling force that affected not only both of us but our families."
Coincidentally,
Doug at this time was preparing to relocate to another state. He
knew he would not have other opportunities to make reconciliation
with his colleague. Yet try as he might, he could not discover where
he had been at fault—how could he rectify a wrong he could
not identify?
On the day before
his move, Doug took his last possible opportunity, still not knowing
what he ought to do. Here in his own words is what happened:
I had intended
to go over to this man's house between meetings, but was detained.
Suddenly I saw this man walk across the parking lot to his car.
I cut short the conversation I was in and almost ran after him.
When I caught up with him I put my hand on his shoulder from behind,
turned him around, entwined our forearms, then pulled him close
to me. When you pounce on someone like that it usually means that
you have something important to say. But what was I supposed to
say? I still wasn't sure what my offense was.
It was not until
the very moment I looked directly and deeply into this man's eyes
for the first time in years that I could see my sin. At that moment
I no longer saw him. I saw myself reflected! Where there had been
no words to say, I found myself asking this good man for his forgiveness.
"Why?" he asked. I heard myself reply, "Because I
have loved you less. That is my sin: I have loved you less."
Tears filled our eyes as I told him then that I loved him. He knew
that I loved him. Whatever else I said after that really didn't
matter much. After we parted I glanced back once to see him still
standing where I had left him, his head down, and his shoulders
gently rolling with his sobs.
Doug had striven
for reconciliation for years. Though he had done all he could think
of to do, his heart hadn't changed. It wasn't because he had made
all that effort in order to please his vanity or to justify himself.
He had made the effort because he knew his heart was not yet right
toward his colleague; he could not stand to think he was offending
him, even inadvertently, without trying to do something about it.
We do not control
the timing of a change of heart. We make ourselves available for
it by faithfully doing the right things for the right reasons; that
much does lie within our control. But just when and how a
change of heart will come we cannot force. It's like physical
healing: our spirits, like our bodies, seem to know how to heal
themselves when the obstacles to healing are removed. Our part—the
part in which deliberation, planning, will-power, and persistence
play their roles—consists of removing the obstacles.
Thus when Doug's
change of heart finally came, it was partly because of his efforts
over a long period of time. Imagine how different his experience
in the parking lot would have been if he had kept a stiff and judgmental
distance from that man all those years (and indeed it's doubtful
that he would have gone out there at all)!
Lifted Out
of Ourselves
The practical implications of this are obvious. We have learned
in this book that, stuck in an unwanted I-It way of being, we cannot
see how to change to the I-You way of being directly. Nevertheless,
we can always do so indirectly. We can always, as a first
step, do what seems right because, for us, it is right. And
we can persist in doing it because it is right. And this is all
we can do deliberately; it lies within our power.
But this much
is enough. It lifts us out of self-absorption. It removes our defensiveness.
It puts us in the mode of yielding to the truth—specifically
the truth about ourselves and about what is right. And in this mode,
we are available to be touched and softened by the truth about others.
Problems
with Self-Improvement Goals
It is helpful to compare doing the right thing for the right
reason with the idea of self-improvement, which can be found in
one form or another almost everywhere in our culture. A product
of that culture, I, too, have taken my turn being captivated by
this idea. Discontented with myself at the age of twenty, I carefully
listed every significant rule of conduct I could think of or could
find in the books I respected. I told myself that if I could strictly
abide by each one of them without exception, I might be able to
rid myself of what I did not like in myself. It seemed my only chance.
I smile now at my naiveté, but in those
years I was desperate. I could not see anything else I could do.
Yet even then
I knew deep down that my strategy wouldn't work. It was my motives
that troubled me. If my motives stayed the same, wouldn't all my
scrupulous rule-keeping amount to just so much hypocrisy? It couldn't
really allay my self-doubt and bring me peace. What was I to do?
It seemed that my method for getting my heart right wouldn't
work until my heart was right! I hadn't sufficiently grasped
the principle of simply doing the right thing for the right reason,
in the faith that this would break the stranglehold of pride and
selfishness.
Many self-improvement
projects suffer from this same confusion. We set out to "re-invent"
or "re-engineer" or "make over" ourselves personally.
This requires imagining the kind of person we want to be and taking
that image as our goal. Then we guide our efforts by that visualized
image. Since we're trying to change from the unacceptable, self-absorbed
condition we are in, our motives spring from that condition, and
there's the rub. Being self-absorbed, we pay minimal attention to
others' hopes and needs except when they serve to advance our self-improvement.
This is true even if we say we're doing it to help them. Everything
we do to obtain the goal embroils us ever more deeply in being the
way we don't want to be.
Sometimes advice-givers
acknowledge the need for a change of heart by cautioning that their
instructions need to be carried out wholeheartedly and sincerely.
They add the notion of a changed heart almost as if it were a worthwhile
afterthought and not difficult to implement. They assume that it's
the easy part when in fact it's the hardest part of all. In spite
of the fact that our success in following their advice hinges upon
the quality of our intent, they rarely offer us any effective suggestions
for attaining the necessary change of heart.
In
the next section, we'll look at the second factor that enabled Benson
and Doug to genuinely do the right thing—self-honesty....
This article
is part of a serialization of Bonds That Make Us
Free: Healing Our Relationships, Coming to Ourselves by
C. Terry Warner.
Click
here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates.
© 2002Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
|
