People, Not Servants or Objects
Increasingly, I’ve observed behavior that disturbs me. In fact, I’ve realized that unless I catch myself, I actually act like this, too (from time to time). What I’ve witnessed is that other people are quite often treated like servants or objects in the eyes of people rather than human beings with lives and stories.
Think about it. I bet if you trace back your day you will actually be able to identify a few times when you treated someone else like a servant or object rather than a person. Commanding your child to take out the trash, telling your employee to do something or not do something, yelling at another driver for inconveniencing you, ignoring the cashier when she asks you about your shopping experience, growling at the waitress when she brings you tea with too much water in it.
Do you ever stop and think about the complexities of our civilization? Everyone has a story and everyone is doing their own thing. Roughly 7 billion living humans. Roughly 312 million Americans all living totally different lives. Then all of a sudden, my world conflicts with your world and…boom – you are my servant and you are not cooperating with my story. Rather than realize this conflict, we either mentally, verbally or physically lash out at this other person.
I was in a parking lot the other day and witnessed an argument between two women who apparently both were going for the same parking spot. One lady thought she had the right to the spot and the other somehow took it from her. No big deal, right? – nope – apparently it was a huge deal. Right there in the parking lot they were in each other’s faces screaming at each other as if getting into TJ Maxx was a life and death situation. Really sad to witness.
When you go to a restaurant, you pay for good service and for good food. You don’t pay for perfection. Waiters, call center representatives, cab drivers, cashiers, salesmen, and your employees are all just trying to provide for their family, make something of themselves, and make the ones they love proud. They aren’t my servant nor an object for my consumption, and they don’t want to be.
I can honestly say that I’ve never been driving and leaned over to my passenger to comment on how fantastic a driver the guy in front of me is. Once or twice, I’ve done the opposite. Ok, literally, almost every time I drive anywhere I find at least one idiot. If I knew that idiot’s story or knew them personally at any level, would I be embarrassed by my comments? For a moment, I treated them as some creature placed in my life to disrupt me, and then they didn’t do what they were told.
We are all people. Loved by many, hated by a few. Possibly even servant to a few, but by choice and not because of inequality. Just because I want to serve you doesn’t mean that I’m your servant. So let’s stop acting like it.
