Six days from now I, or more aptly put we, should be in northeast Ohio. What we will do there, well only time will tell, but that is where we should be. Though hopefully we will have stopped at a Waffle House at some point before we rest in the great state of Ohio. While we are getting closer and closer to this road trip becoming a reality and I could focus on that for today submission, I have decided to take another route. I have been thinking a lot about this idea that actions speak louder than words lately and I have been thinking about it under two different contexts. First and foremost in my personal life, but also in the context of a volunteer setting.
How many times have you been let down by someone because they didn't do what they said what they were going to do? How many times have you been promised that something will happen, only to be letdown? It happens all the time. Sometimes it can be something as small as making a phone call to keep in touch with a distant friend or a promise to help someone move. But then there are the big ones, the ones that happen when we build up a situation in our mind expecting something to turn out a certain way, only to be brought back to earth with a sense of loss and wonderment as to what happened and why. It hurts even more when it happens at the hands of the ones we love. While the person may not have been intentionally lying or brushing us off with no intention of actually making good on their word, the pain can still be real and it hurts. I see it all the time. I too can be guilty from time to time. But I believe that it can be a strong indicator of the character of the person you may be dealing with. In my opinion most people do indeed "do what they say" and act appropriately and accordingly. It feels good to know that others can count on us, to know that we are needed or even wanted. When this disappointment becomes a recurring incident with one person in particular then it becomes time to re-evaluate that relationship and whether you truly can count on them. Maybe I put too much trust in the people around me, but I would always prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt.
While I have experienced this quite a bit in my twenty-nine years, I have also encountered it in other settings, such as a volunteer organization. This is where it gets a little grey and you can't be to quick to judgement. When working in an organization that relies on volunteers in order to accomplish the goals you truly are relying on the volunteer's word. Again, people feel good when they volunteer their time to helps others, but when they fail to show or have another commitment that prevents them from carrying out their job then we must tread carefully. I truly believe that one of the greatest gift that God has given us is the time we have here with each other. We can work to make more money, we can work to grow more food, but we cannot get more time. That is one of the few things that is out of our control. So when a volunteer offers their time, the time that they could be doing somehting else with, with no expectation of a return then we have to respect that as a gift. We also have to understand that people have lives and that things happen unexpectedly that requires our attention, which causes us to have to cancel engagements. We must not hold that against the person. We must take a moment and understand the circumstances that caused that person to cancel. When I volunteered at the suicide hotline there were times when people wouldn't show up for one reason or another but every week the management at the hotline reached out and made everyone feel like they were a valued member of the organization.
So how do we reconcile this idea of understanding into our personal lives and not allow that inaction to taint our personal opinion of someone? Sometimes I have to remind myself to stop, take a minute to look at the situation from another perspective than my own, and try to see why the person let me down. If there was no malicious intent and a reasonable explanation than it is unfair of me to hold that against them. If it does indeed happen more often than not then it does become necessary to re-examine the role that person plays in my life.
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