If you’ve been reading these Sunday Letters for a while, you may have heard this story before. I tell it from time to time because it’s a favorite of mine. And as we slide into the holiday season with all the high emotions it brings, it feels like a timely reminder. So here we go:
One day, while riding in the car, my teen-age son and I were listening to the radio. Some guy was explaining that we don’t always feel warm fuzzies toward someone we love. “We like each other because,” he said. (Because she made you laugh. Because he did the dishes. You can imagine any “because” you like.) “But,” the radio guy continued, “we love each other anyway.”
We love each other even when. That’s because love can embrace even those things in each other that drive us batty, or that conflict with our own cherished viewpoints or beliefs. Liking usually can’t go there; it stops at the differences.
My son and I loved the radio guy’s statement: We like each other because; we love each other anyway. It was so true that it made us laugh, and from that day on we often said to each other, as a kind of affectionate joke, “I love you anyway.”
I thought about that this past week when I ran into a difficult situation with a friend. She was recently diagnosed with a serious medical condition and when she asked me to pick up a certain snack item for her, I said I would feel uncomfortable doing that and asked if maybe she could make a different choice. Later, I gently suggested that she see a dietician for help in changing her eating habits so her body could stay as healthy as possible as long as possible.
She told me that she knew I was trying to help, but that it was up to her to choose what she wanted to eat and what she didn’t, and she didn’t want any more of my advice on the subject.
I thanked her for telling me that, and promised that I would respect her wishes. And I will – even though in my version of reality, the things that she’s eating are killing her.
What do you do when someone you love is, in your view, choosing to do things that may cost her life? Things that make you furious, that make you feel helpless, that, according to everything you know and believe, are potentially deadly mistakes Do you abandon your relationship because it’s too painful to see your friend’s choices? Because she’s refusing to accept what you (of course) believe to be superior information?
Nope. You love your friend anyway. You love her enough to honor her free will to make her own choices about her own life. That doesn’t mean you consent to enable clearly self-destructive behavior. You can draw lines and say what you are unwilling to do. Your free will counts, too.
You can work to find compromises. You can even do things for her that you strongly disagree with, as long as you’re clear that you’re helping only because you honor her right to make her own decisions and not because you‘re condoning them.
In essence, it all boils down to the Golden Rule – treating others the way you want to be treated.
Yeah, it gets difficult when you and the other hold strongly conflicting beliefs. You have to face the fact that each of you has plenty of evidence for what you believe, and that, in the end, beliefs are just that.
Whether it’s which foods to eat or not eat, or what political party to support, or what treatment to choose for a medical condition, or what God to believe in or reject – each of us must choose for ourselves. And each of us has the right to expect those who love us to accept our choices – whether they agree with them or not.
Because, in the end, it’s really true. We may like each other because, but we need to love each other anyway.
Wishing you a week where liking triumphs almost every minute.
Warmly,
Susan
Image by Ben Fleeson from Pixabay