My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother. (Proverbs 6:20)
I have a calculator. It causes me no end of trouble.
You see, if I don’t poke in the right numbers, it won’t give me the right answer. That’ s unreasonable. It’s supposed to be a help and all it does is give me wrong answers. I bought it to help me balance my checkbook, and it just told me I am $2, 590.87 overdrawn.
Of course, I neglected to tell it where to put the decimal and I forgot to tell it the about the deposit I made at the bank this morning, but it was in my pocket at the bank with me and it ought to pay better attention.
Am I being facetious? Yes, of course I am. The machine can only do what I tell it to do. If I want it to give me right answers, I have to give it the right numbers to calculate. It cannot see or hear or learn from watching me.
I know some children who act that way to their families. They expect mother to know when they have torn their pants even if they’ve stuffed them under the bed and forgot to tell her about them. I have seen boys who just knew their dad understood he was supposed to go to the program with them tonight. Never mind that they forgot to give him the note from their teacher about it. They think their big sisters should know what they did with their shoes as if all sister has to do is pay attention to where they drop things.
In short, they’re totally silly. They think the world must revolve around them. They don’t take care of themselves and they expect others to do their work for them.
In my head, I see all the Moms out there nodding their heads wearily.
But ladies and gentlemen, do we as adults do the same sorts of things? Do we expect our mates to know what we want without telling them? Do you expect each other to be mind readers?
It doesn’t work that way.
I worked for a boss once who was always forgetting to give us direction. He’d come into a meeting and ask how this or that thing was doing, and we’d look at him quizzically and ask him what case he was referring to. Turns out, it had never left his desk to be assigned.
It’s a real morale booster, I can tell you that, to be held responsible for something you knew nothing about.
In my counseling practice, I’ve heard loud moans going on about the same thing in other businesses. It’s irrational, it’s inconsistent, it’s frustrating and it destroys businesses and families alike to be so arbitrary to others.
Are you unreasonable? Do you make assumptions that cause trouble? Only babies need taken care of; responsible people prove they are adults by the way they act. Even grown-ups need to learn to be clear in their expectations.
It’s not nearly so hard as you think.
The time is always right to do what is right. – Martin Luther King, Jr.