Showing our best side

lsproule@thereview.ca
Upstairs in our house was a door that we kept latched on our side. On the other side of this door lived another family, in this big old house that had been divided into two separate dwellings. When I wanted to play with the kids next door, I didn’t have to go outside and go around to their house. I simply ran upstairs and knocked hard on that upstairs door until my little friends heard me. They would run upstairs and slide the latch on their side before opening the door to play. Likewise, the children next door did the same to get my attention. All they had to do was knock loudly and upon hearing them, I would run up the stairs and down the hall. What I did differently from my two little friends was this. I would answer their knock with, “Whadaya want?” – or sometimes, just, “What?”
But not for long. My mother put a stop to it by asking me why I was talking that way.
What if that had been the Queen knocking, she asked.
Why would the Queen be next door, I countered, using up all of my seven-year-old wisdom.
Well, what if she was, my mother replied. It’s rude to talk to people like I had been doing, she insisted.
I remember thinking how my voice must sound to my friends and it made me stop calling through the door in such a rude way. And I never again heard their knocks without thinking, could it one day be the Queen behind that door?
I got to thinking this week about people who can say the most difficult things in the nicest way. There are people who can express a complaint and help you see a better way of doing things. You are left with the feeling that they care about you instead of feeling that they have insulted you.
Few of us like to tell someone in the midst of full-blown nastiness, “I hear what you are saying, but I don’t like how you said it.” It seems as if the need to express one’s views, be heard and be up front with people has somehow superceded the need for courtesy and looking within oneself to “tone it down.”
I have to say that last week, when someone called several times in one day when I was unexpectedly away from my desk for the day and in one of the voice messages, asked if “your majesty” would call him back, I thought back to my mother and the Queen.
What if the Queen had indeed listened to those impatient messages? Would the caller have regretted his tone of voice?
It isn’t, of course, only the Queen of England who deserves to be spoken to with respect. We all deserve it.
It is often just easier to give in to our impatience, especially with those who are near and dear to us. Montreal Gazette columnist Susan Schwartz wrote about this very subject last month. In her column, she recounts the story of a man who hears just how impatient his tone of voice was while talking to his wife, thanks to footage caught on a video camera of him trying to show his wife how to use a tripod.
Shocked at his own behaviour, he apologized and resolved to do better.
I thought about that video camera and know that I, like most of you reading this, behave differently when I think people are watching.
I like to think that we would all show our best side if we were being watched all the time. And we would do it because we would reach within and find that within ourselves; it would not simply be an act for the camera.
Many religions espouse the idea that God is watching all the time . . . that should be a notion that keeps many of us in line.
But it doesn’t.
Even though that best side, the gracious side, the patient side, the pleasant side . . . lives within, it isn’t always what floats to the surface first. Sometimes, the scum is all there is. We say the wrong thing, hurt people’s feelings or say thoughtless words we regret instantly.
If anything, we need time to think before we speak because often, we are in a wild hurry to take care of it now, say what we think right now, get our point across and fix what we think is broken, right now.
If we could take a moment to think before we speak, it could only be a good thing. Think about what we need to say and how we can say it from the best place inside of us.
You could picture the video camera if it helps. But remind yourself that acting as your best self is as real as it gets.