You are in control of all that matters.
In my recent past I sent a gift to a former friend. It wasn’t so much an olive branch as it was… I guess an effort at gracious closure. It was clear that our friendship was long over and I had no interest in even resuming communication. Still the thing that resulted in the rift between us was a combined effort. We both exhibited immature behavior and so I ordered three things from Amazon, one off of their wish list (a book), one movie that this person had wanted to see for some time back in the day, and another that had their personal boogieman in it (I still believe that the Rod Taylor Time Machine is still the best treatment of the original story, worth a look, and the Morlocks are supposed to be scary). Anyway the idea was that they would be gifts with no strings attached. I made no request for contact nor did I provide contact information.
The reason I bring it up is because of the comment a friend of this person made on a social media site. You see the person to whom I sent the gifts decided to put their own spin on the situation. Being overly dramatic that translated to a plea to friends asking advice along the lines of this, “Someone I used to be friends with sent be a gift and asked for nothing in return, I don’t know what to do, help.” I grant you that they embellished a bit, and many of the embellishments only bore a vague and distant resemblance to the truth, but that isn’t my point.
Some friends jumped on the band wagon and tried to pump up the drama, which is no doubt what this former friend wanted. One friend, however, made a lovely point that although wasted on this person was worth repeating. He said simply, “You have no control over what the person who sent the gift intended, or even a way of knowing what their intentions might have been. What you do have control over is how you decide to take it. No matter what they intended you have the means to accept it as a generous gesture.”
I think that fellow was pretty clever. His unspoken expansion was that if the gift was genuine then all is well. If it was intended as some sort of slight then you have turned a negative into a positive. It was sad to see his disappointment when they followed the letter of his advice, but not the spirit. The choice they made was to take it as an insult, turn it into a big dramatic event with them at the center and thank most of their friends for their support through this troubling event.
The whole situation reminds me of a couple of rules of life.
- You decide how people treat you.
- You seldom have the power to change others, but you do have the power to change yourself and how you react to others.
- No one can insult you without your cooperation. If you refuse to be insulted their best efforts will fail miserably.