My definition of hell is a place where the tapes of your worst moments on earth are played back over and over and over. What if the times when you were unkind to your partner, or yelling at your kid, or gossiping about a friend, relative or someone in the office, or really mean to someone in a store or restaurant was the only channel available 24/7?
This fear however, has never been enough motivation to lead an exemplary life where I am always mindful of what I say, how I say it, to whom I say it and when I say it. I’m more like the person who gets horribly drunk and prays to God they will never drink again, if only they come through this one.
Being married to someone perpetually kind, rarely angry and probably doesn’t have a total of two minutes worth of regrettable tapes from his entire life is a great example of what’s possible; but works as a motivator about as well as putting a picture of a model on the refrigerator as an incentive not to eat.
Well, I was busted last night on a conference call and NOT on mute. In fact, I wasn’t even listening to the call when they kept on saying, “we hear every word you are saying, Ronni. Can you please put us on mute?” My excuse-I was having a conversation with a friend who rescheduled because of hurricane Irene telling her about the call I was on, thinking she would then join the others and I could continue on my call.
That’s not the way it rolled. After 10 or 15 minutes I checked back in and discovered I had disrupted the entire call and they could only hear me. This of course was my second concern. My first concern? What did I say? What did I say? What did I say? Visions of public figures doing perp walks danced through my mind. As I quickly played the tape back in my mind I rated the content as personal and embarrassing but not humiliating. But who knows.
The question is, were those 10 minutes of shame enough of a reminder that life today is an open mic? If I can’t lead an exemplary life of words and deeds and kindness because I’m not the highly evolved person I admire and strive to be, can I at least stop making some of that noises that I will regret here on earth?
I’ve cleaned up my email life so those can’t be read back over and over but that’s an outside-in approach. An inside out approach is to always be a person I admire so that I would never have to worry about anything I said or wrote or did that was caught on tape. And guess what? We are all, always being taped. Even if there is no recording our words play over and over in the lives of everyone we speak to.
Please God, if you stop this awful feeling, I promise, I will never ever utter an unworthy thought again.
Tags: Analogies, Attitude, Communication, E-Mail Communication, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Important Messaages, Words
November 17, 2011 at 12:36 PM |
We all have embarrassing moments — times we did something stupid or unthinking, but it doesn’t mean we’re bad people. Don’t focus on what happened or even the thoughts about them. A good technique when you’re obsessing about it is to put your attention on your body. Often you’ll find a tight area (heart, stomach), which is where the stress went. Easily put your attention there and it will help in 2 ways: avoid some of the psychological angst and actually help relax that stress.
And know that your concern over this is a sign that you are really a GOOD person.