Getting over myself

     For the past couple of months, my father-in-law has been staying with us while he works a job out here in Houston. The job market back in North Carolina, where he lives, is not as robust as that here for the engineering specialty he does, so we are putting him up while he works so that he won't have to stay in a hotel the entire time and worry about cooking, laundry, and all the other housekeeping tasks you can't escape.
     Skip has a three-word prescription for any type of inflammatory situation. Whether concerned that the world is targeting you for abuse, upset that someone else gets better treatment than you for the same effort, or that things are just not going your way:
 
     "Get over yourself."

      We all know types that obsess (and compulse, for that matter) over meticulous details and slights, sucking up all the positive energy in the room like black holes of emotion.

     " Boy, that guy" he will say "really needs to get over himself."

     We all are subject to chuckleheads who stubbornly apply the letter of the law rather than its spirit, who meander into legalisms and hijack productivity with foolishness.

    "Someone needs to tell them to get over themselves."

    In fact, his universal proscription has me chuckling with anticipatory glee any time he starts a tale from work or from his colorful past, because I just know where it is going. Someone or other it seems, needs to get over himself.

    So I started thinking the other day that what seems on first consideration to be nothing more than a cynical crack is actually incredibly good advice.
    For what besides your very own self gets in your own way almost every day? Often I have heard the adage that my life would be a lot simpler if I were not held back by the actions of the confounded idiot I face in the mirror when I shave every morning. What anger, or fear, or pessimism ruins otherwise grand days and great plans? If I could come to terms with Jeff and just let go of my knee-jerk reactions, I could accomplish much more each day.
    And there are other benefits, too:
     Several years ago, I took a course on keeping harmful speech out of my life. It was taught by a retired preacher who helped a group of us examine the ways that spiteful and judgemental speech can drive wedges between people in both egregious and minor ways. One of the most important points that I keep with me from that course is this

       People may do things to get on your nerves-but remember, they are still YOUR nerves.

      Even when provoked, you have to own your response. There are TONS of unreasonable people out there in the world who do horrible wrongs deliberately on a daily basis. There is no way to stop some of the most outrageous behavior, and power only in the way I respond to provocation. With viciousness. Or anger. Or coldness. Or indifference. Or, just maybe, with understanding. With compassion.

     And it seems to me that living my life in gratitude also means returning not anger for anger but returning compassion and understanding for hurts and slights. Daily it is a monumental task NOT to flip off the jackhole who cut me off in traffic, or to get my nose out of joint when someone close to me inflicts some minor hurt. Daily it is hard to hold my tongue when I want to let loose and tell someone "Hey, you know what you need? You need to just get over yourself!"

     I guess it starts with my getting over myself.

Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29