Accepting the unspoken word

There have been two separate thoughts, one long held and one more recent, that have been floating around in the back of my mind. It was however an event last week that led me to connect them. 

When I used to play a lot of football I remember being struck by something my old coach and friend “Sir” Dave Stapylton said to me. He said that you can tell a lot about who a man is, and how he lives life, by watching the way he plays football. The more I watched people I knew play, the more this seemed to ring true. I’ve never forgotten that. In fact at work I still sometimes use this as one of two “mental levelers” to help me better understand situations I am not comfortable with – I often try and imagine how a game of football would pan out if I could get all of my work colleagues out onto a 5-a-side pitch for 90 minutes, (the other is to try and imagine what a particular person was like when they were at high school – the age at which we start to become adults with all our foibles and insecurities).

The more recent thought that struck me was another passage from Po Bronson’s book that I mentioned in an earlier posting. He said that, “When I was in New Orleans, one young man who was not yet a parent, but considering it, said “I’ve noticed that people who don’t have kids never quite see themselves as a success, and people who do have kids never see themselves as failures.” It seemed dead true to me, but why? Are kids an “achievement” that makes you feel like a success? Not quite. I stared at his quote for six months before I could see the cause and effect: having kids will teach you to be accepting. Not to be submissive, but to be patient. Tolerant of minor delays. You don’t measure yourself on the conventional success/failure spectrum. Many parents talk about how it’s made them better people, and this is one of those ways – it forces the mind to be a little more flexible.”

The event that brought these two ideas together for me was last week when I gave a present to a friend. This friend is someone who I really like a lot, and the present was not for any special occasion other than the fact that an opportunity presented itself and I thought he might like the gift. He is a rather brusque individual who has a tendency to be somewhat irascible especially when tired. He leaves no-one indifferent; indeed his own daughter said to me that people either love him or they hate him. I obviously fall into the former category. When you give a gift you naturally assume the person will say thank you, even if it is a pair of unwanted socks at Christmas. My friend doesn't tend to and obviously didn't say thank you on this occasion. However I am increasingly able to beat back the natural instinct to expect a verbal thanks and I can now focus more on my friend’s behavior immediately after the giving of any gift… On this occasion I gave him the gift around the middle of the day, he then basically changed his plans for the rest of the afternoon to help me out with my horse. We spent a good few hours together and on reflection it was clearly infinitely more meaningful and enjoyable than a speedily spluttered two word “thank you” (indeed in French it would have even only been a single word – a solitary “merci”!).

So as much as life’s “conventional spectrum” would dictate that I should get my “thank you” and that this would confirm that I had been successful in opting to give him a present, this individual has reminded me of the power and the importance of the unspoken word and my need to be more accepting of different ways of doing things. What he did and his behavior immediately after I gave him the gift, rather than anything he said, reconfirmed for me what he’s all about and why I like him as a person. Whilst I’m not going to stop teaching the kids to say please and thank you, this particular incident served to remind me of the power of what’s not said but done in a world where there are many erudite air bags in all walks of life. I must remember to teach that lesson to the kids although maybe I’ll wait until they are out of nappies.