"I DON'T KNOW"

My sister and I used to chuckle at my mom when during a lull in the conversation she would just out of the blue say, "I don't know."   She said it a lot and we always wondered, "What in the heck is she talking about?"  The older I get the more inclined I am to shake my head and say the same thing!

There are certainly things in this life that I don't know about.  I am far from an expert on anything.  I think the longer one lives, the more aware you become of the things you just don't have an answer to.

One thing that is a mystery to me is something that appears to be counterintuitive in principle.  It is the idea that we have become a society that cares too MUCH about what other people think; while at the same time, caring too LITTLE about what other people think.

Confused yet?  Here is my theory.   I believe that most, if not all, human beings want/need to be loved...or at least liked.  However, no matter what we do or how hard we try some people are just not going to like us.   Heck, we are not going to like everyone either.  At the same time, some go through life pretending they don't need others and it is their world and they are just allowing us to live in it.  They really don't care what anyone things.

 

I think the ills of our society and the world could all be fixed if we cared both less and more about what others think of us.

Point Number One:  As a teacher, I see students who daily hungry for attention.  Their desire to get this attention is manifest in a variety of ways.  It is easy for me to gaze with my adult eyes and see how futile some of the attempts really are.   The boys want the girls to think they are cool or hip; whatever the latest slang word for acceptance is these days.  The girls want the same of the boys.   Likewise, the boys want to impress other boys, and girls want to impress other girls.  

None of this is news. It has been going on for centuries.  At issue: impressing the wrong people, for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time.  I have witnessed the class clown stressing to get attention from his classmates, seeking their acceptance and approval while not understanding that they are actually laughing AT him and not WITH him.  He truly cares what a person, who will only be in his life for an instant, thinks of him in the moment; all the while ignoring how he is being perceived by others that have a much broader impact on his future. 

Another student will walk into class late thinking he is exempt from the concept of time.  He receives the laughter of his classmates because of his self-perceived coolness, NOT caring what the teacher, who holds great impact on his future, thinks about him.

Point Number Two:  It is just not our youth that struggles with this. Our society cares too much about the cars we drive, the houses we live in, the clothes we wear.  We care about appearances. We want to be up-to-date, with it, cool. We want to fit in, be accepted and to feel a part of something. 

 
The reason we care so much about these things is because we care about how we are looked upon by the world.  We care about having it...we just often don't care HOW we get it. Much like the child in the classroom!

One can lie, cheat, stab somebody in the back. Some can be unethical, dishonest, and ruthless. People can treat individuals with contempt and disrespect while seeking to gain the admiration of others.  We can sacrifice our own character in an attempt to gains someone else’s approval. 
 
I grew up in a very modest setting.  Having shared my background with someone once, I was later described as “having grown up poor.”   I never thought of myself as poor and I still don’t think that way.  But to the person describing me I was.  Sadly, this person put great stock in wealth and social status…on appearances. 
 

When I had the opportunity to attend some social functions with the so-called “socially privileged” I discovered that many of these people were well-dressed pretenders, snobs and slobs.  There was the woman married to a surgeon that was so drunk that she embarrassed the entire table where we were sitting.  There was the man who had schemed his way to financial “success”, only to have landed in prison for fraud.  There was another businessman who conducted his career like a “three-card monte” shyster, moving his business and companies around to stay one step ahead of the feds. They care so much; and at the same time care so little!

I have written about my parents in some previous blogs.  I miss them both very much.  My mom had her own version of the Golden Rule: “You aren’t any better than anyone else; but no one is better than you!”  It was her way of trying to keep us grounded but at the same time confident.  It was her way of acknowledging that no matter what one has or doesn’t have, at the core, we are all the same. 

 
It seems like she knew quite a bit.  She knew: We all want to be well thought of by someone.  We all need affirmation.  We all need to be respected.  We all need to be acknowledged. We all need to be loved.  The question is:  How are we going about getting it?

Then again…I could be wrong.  “I don’t know!”

Thanks for reading.