Your friend truthfully confronts you about a situation and instead of hearing them out, you immediately get offended. You may not talk to them for several days or maybe it’s not that drastic; maybe you won’t talk to them for the rest of the day. When someone we love is being truthful with us why is it sometimes hard to take?
Most often we get offended and not hear what our friend is saying because we either feel like what they are saying isn’t true, or they once did the same thing, or because they too have faults. Sometimes our actions pretty much say to the friend who is confronting us about a situation “How dare you”, but a person who is truly our friend has every right to confront us about situations that we are not doing right or even when we have seemed to have lost our integrity. They wouldn’t be a friend if they didn’t.
Although in life we’ll walk around saying “I’ll be the first to admit that I am not perfect” but in reality sometimes we really believe that we are. Of course we don’t admit that we think we are in words, but in deeds our actions prove that we believe that we are. Think about it; your friend tells you something that you have done or aren’t doing right and you immediately get offended. Now, if we really believe that we aren’t perfect we’ll at least hear them out, take in the words they just gave us, and learn from those words.
Have you ever said “It’s not what you say but how you say it”? Sometimes no matter what or how a person says something to us we still cannot handle it. Pretty flowers can’t always be added to words that confront, it depends on what the situation calls for. When we can’t handle it we’ll say to the person; that was mean, rude, blunt, insensitive, or whatever other words we choose to use but in reality the only word we really need to use is “truthful”. Truthful because that is what our friend was being with us.
Most of us say that we really want our friends to be honest with us but normally it depends upon what they are being honest about. If we can be honest with ourselves, most of us do realize that we are touchy about certain situations, but real friends shouldn’t have to skirt around issues to call things to our attention. Some would suggest that we all just need thicker skin; it’s not the thickness of the skin but the ability to take the words and allow them to moisturize, soothe, or lubricate us into being healthier people.
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Looking for something to do this Thursday in the Detroit Metro area? The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History is having a listening session this Thursday, November 18th from 6:3pm until 8:30pm. “Spend the evening with members of the Velvelettes listening to great music performed at the Apollo Theatre.” The event is free and open to the public. Please click here for more information.
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