It's not about me
As I was sitting in an afternoon lecture hall one day, one of my professors came in to apologize for something he had done earlier in the day. It was 3 minutes before the class would start, yet there were only 5 of us sitting around. The professor asked us if we had gone to see the presentation of the Nobel prize to one of the medical school's faculty. I had quickly shouted out that I was disappointed that I missed it and that I hoped another faculty received one so I could go. The professor then said, "It's not about you." I laughed at the time and tried to explain myself, "No, no, I would like another faculty member to win one, first and foremost. And it would be nice to go to that one, since I had to miss this one because of a class."
Those words played over and over again in my head for some reason. "It's not about you." As I've grown older I have tried to constantly be aware of my thoughts, my actions, and what my motivations are. Personally, for a long while I was proud of myself for being less of a selfish person than I used to be. But the funny thing is, it only takes a comment or two from someone else to become fully aware of where you really are in your self development.
Its the small things that I started to examine that made me realized, I still have a long way to go in decreasing my selfish thoughts, attitudes, and actions. One such issue is the issue of my bf wanting to join the marines. He mentioned the idea to me about a month after we got back together and it made me really upset. I first thought - why the hell would someone give up a comfortable life to go pursue some battle being led by an idiot president? I then thought that maybe it was an issue of how much he valued me. If he truly thought I was awesome, then why would he go and do that?
So for a while I would make snipping comments about his idea of joining the marines. I would send articles about people dying in Iraq, etc. Then one day I thought, if I'm going to argue a point, I should know what I'm arguing against. I looked up the officer program that my bf wants to join. It was then that I realized why he might want to join - officer training is a distinct program of the marines; they train you but you don't have to accept a commission. The marines only want officers who want to be there. Fair enough - he could go, decide he hates it and then come back. At least those were my thoughts on why he might want to go.
But I still wasn't getting it. After having a long conversation w/ him about why he would want to do such a thing, I realized that the motivating factor wasn't the fact that he could choose to leave if he didn't want to do it. It meant a lot more to him. My bf doesn't pretend he lead a hard life, nor does he think the world owes him anything. Instead, he's so grateful of the ease and comfort of his life, that he almost feels guilty. It took me a while to understand this concept since I lead a completely different life than he did as a kid. But for him, joining the marines serves three purposes - 1.) to give him more direction in his life since he will have to experience hardship he would never experience on his own 2.) to try to give back to a country that gave him so much and 3.) if he wants to hold some kind of office one day, having spent some time in the military is the equivalent of having "street cred."
While I still believe that the things he wants to accomplish in his lifetime do not have to be filtered through joining the marines, as I watched him talk about his reasoning, my professors words rung loud and clear. Bang, its not about you. I realized that the status of our relationship has nothing to do w/ his motivation to join the military. I mean, if someone is going to give up almost 3 decades of living a pretty cushy life, an awesome girlfriend of 6 months isn't going to be all that persuasive anyway.
I still think he's crazy, but now I have no desire to persuade him not to join, b/c its not about me. If he does join, we'll probably still break up, b/c lord knows I was not meant to be the wife of a military man. But in the meantime I can be at peace w/ whatever he decides to do. Plus he doesn't have to wake up to annoying emails from me about the latest awful thing the President did that adversely affect people in the military.
By the way, another faculty member DID win the nobel prize in the same week and I WAS able to go. It was awe-inspiring. Simply...amazing.
Those words played over and over again in my head for some reason. "It's not about you." As I've grown older I have tried to constantly be aware of my thoughts, my actions, and what my motivations are. Personally, for a long while I was proud of myself for being less of a selfish person than I used to be. But the funny thing is, it only takes a comment or two from someone else to become fully aware of where you really are in your self development.
Its the small things that I started to examine that made me realized, I still have a long way to go in decreasing my selfish thoughts, attitudes, and actions. One such issue is the issue of my bf wanting to join the marines. He mentioned the idea to me about a month after we got back together and it made me really upset. I first thought - why the hell would someone give up a comfortable life to go pursue some battle being led by an idiot president? I then thought that maybe it was an issue of how much he valued me. If he truly thought I was awesome, then why would he go and do that?
So for a while I would make snipping comments about his idea of joining the marines. I would send articles about people dying in Iraq, etc. Then one day I thought, if I'm going to argue a point, I should know what I'm arguing against. I looked up the officer program that my bf wants to join. It was then that I realized why he might want to join - officer training is a distinct program of the marines; they train you but you don't have to accept a commission. The marines only want officers who want to be there. Fair enough - he could go, decide he hates it and then come back. At least those were my thoughts on why he might want to go.
But I still wasn't getting it. After having a long conversation w/ him about why he would want to do such a thing, I realized that the motivating factor wasn't the fact that he could choose to leave if he didn't want to do it. It meant a lot more to him. My bf doesn't pretend he lead a hard life, nor does he think the world owes him anything. Instead, he's so grateful of the ease and comfort of his life, that he almost feels guilty. It took me a while to understand this concept since I lead a completely different life than he did as a kid. But for him, joining the marines serves three purposes - 1.) to give him more direction in his life since he will have to experience hardship he would never experience on his own 2.) to try to give back to a country that gave him so much and 3.) if he wants to hold some kind of office one day, having spent some time in the military is the equivalent of having "street cred."
While I still believe that the things he wants to accomplish in his lifetime do not have to be filtered through joining the marines, as I watched him talk about his reasoning, my professors words rung loud and clear. Bang, its not about you. I realized that the status of our relationship has nothing to do w/ his motivation to join the military. I mean, if someone is going to give up almost 3 decades of living a pretty cushy life, an awesome girlfriend of 6 months isn't going to be all that persuasive anyway.
I still think he's crazy, but now I have no desire to persuade him not to join, b/c its not about me. If he does join, we'll probably still break up, b/c lord knows I was not meant to be the wife of a military man. But in the meantime I can be at peace w/ whatever he decides to do. Plus he doesn't have to wake up to annoying emails from me about the latest awful thing the President did that adversely affect people in the military.
By the way, another faculty member DID win the nobel prize in the same week and I WAS able to go. It was awe-inspiring. Simply...amazing.
posted by GyangBang | 8:32 PM
2 Comments:
aww... i'm glad you got to go to the kornberg thing. how was it?
It was amazing! From the second it started to the minute I had to leave to my friday class at noon, which I was late for but figured it was worth it. Just watching someone being awarded something like the Nobel prize for dedication to their work was really inspiring. It made me say "hey! i want a nobel prize!" HAHAHA yeah right! It was also emotionally touching since his dad was there :)
My next goal is to be able to sit through a whole one, without having to run off to class... here's to a nobel at Stanford next year!
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