Whose Problem?

(Author Unkown)

A man feared his wife wasn't hearing as well as she used to and he thought she might need a hearing aid. Not quite sure how to approach her, he called the family doctor to discuss the problem. The doctor told him there is a simple informal test you could perform to give me a better idea about her hearing loss. "Here's what you do," said the doctor, "stand about 40 feet away from her, and in a normal conversational speaking tone see if she hears you. If not, go to 30 feet, then 20 feet, and so on until you get a response." That evening, the wife was in the kitchen cooking dinner, and he was in the den. He says to himself, "I'm about 40 feet away, let's see what happens." Then in a normal tone he asks, 'Honey, what's for dinner?" No response. So he moves closer to the kitchen, about 30 feet from his wife and repeats, "Honey, what's for dinner?" Still no response. Next he moves into the dining room where he is about 20 feet from his wife and asks, "Honey, what's for dinner?" Again he gets no response so; he walks up to the kitchen door, about 10 feet away. "Honey, what's for dinner?" Again there is no response. So he walks right up behind her. "Honey, what's for dinner?" "James, for the fifth time I've said, CHICKEN!"

Reflection

It’s funny how quickly we go around saying this person does this and does that and has this issue and that fault, when the problem may just be within you. Now I'm not saying if a person is always late, it's you that's late - what I am pointing out is a little bit of patience and tolerance makes peoples 'faults' seem more manageable. Everyone is fighting their own battles and it's not up to us to be the one to go around judging their personal challenges. Sometimes we can't change who people are or how they act, but we can certainly change how we view them and tolerance is a very good start. Once you can master this, you will learn how much easier it is to have relationships with people you find difficult.

The next time you find yourself judging a persons faults, remember the problem may not be with them, it could very well be within you!

May you have an awesome week!

Darren Zwiers

"What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature" ~ Voltaire.