Basically, I was an ass. A huge one. Some lessons we learn in life are very, very painful. Even though we totally deserve them. And even though they make us a much better person. Some of us are so hard-headed (me), that it takes something huge to teach us anything. This last Friday night, I learned one such lesson. I needed it. I'm thankful for it now. And I can honestly say that I will forever be changed by it.
My fiance and I were in Shoguns eating dinner. We weren't seated at the hibachi grill...we sat in the dining room. There were two young men seated at a table directly across from us. They were most probably college students...I'd guess them to be around 21-22. They were eating dinner and drinking beer. Should I have ever paid them any attention at all? No...because what other people do is none of my business. Absolutely none of my business. But...being the person I am, I looked over and noticed that the one directly across from me was sitting kind-of sideways and he kept looking over at us. Normal people would have probably brushed that off and not thought a thing about it. But being the jerk I am, I became quickly annoyed. I could have just been annoyed and kept my mouth shut. But if you know me, you know I never keep this big mouth shut. It isn't something I'm proud of. I started telling CC that this guy was some sort-of creepster. CC is a genuinely great person and he told me that they weren't doing anything wrong and to just mind my own business and let it go. But being the embarrassingly ugly person that I am, I couldn't let it go. I kept staring back at him every time I felt him looking at me. I don't remember giving him dirty looks...but I'm sure I did because my face, unfortunately, is very expressive and shows what I'm thinking. In the 15-20 minutes I sat across from this guy, I made fun of his hair being in a "man bun". I made fun of the fact that his shirt was unbuttoned down to the middle of his chest...I made the comment that I had more chest hair than him (I don't actually have chest hair, btw). I told CC that I had decided that he was a computer hacker who lived in his mother's dark basement and experimented on human corpses as a hobby. My reasoning for putting him in a dark basement was due to his extreme paleness. Ummm....people don't get any paler than me! I WAS WAY OUT OF LINE!!! I'm not proud of myself and I'm in fact even embarrassed admitting what a nasty person I can be to those of you reading my blog.
CC is a sweetheart. He would have never even noticed this guy had I not been fussing for at least a solid 15 minutes instead of just enjoying dinner with my fiance. Yes, he's a saint to put up with me. After a while, even CC started to get a little guarded concerning this guy just because of MY problem with him.
Fast forward, the guy and his companion pay their bill and stand to leave. The one I had been talking about so horribly came to our table and reached his hand out to CC and said "ya'll have a good night". Ok, I was confused. Even CC was confused. Because after all the staring back and forth, we couldn't understand where that had come from. I thought maybe he was being a smart ass by saying that (yeah, I know...I'm a doll). Now, I speak to strangers all the time and tell them "hello" and "have a nice day"...and that's okay. But when a stranger who I deemed odd does it, I wonder what his angle is. Less than three minutes after they walk out the door, our waitress comes over and says, "The gentleman at the table across from you paid for your dinner tonight and said to tell you to have a nice evening. He was a great, great guy. Super sweet". I WAS SPEECHLESS. And I instantly felt lower than I've ever felt at any point in my life. I had tears in my eyes. I thought I was going to throw-up. This guy picked up our $50 check. And I had been nothing but ugly. I can't even describe to you how I felt on the inside. I instantly dropped my head and began to pray...I prayed for forgiveness, I prayed for blessings on that guy and I prayed that God make me a better person. And I thanked God for putting me in check. What a painful, painful lesson to learn. I pushed my plate away and couldn't eat anymore simply because I felt physically ill because I had been such a wretched, horrible person.
I judged someone. For no reason. I talked about someone. For no reason. I made fun of someone. For no reason. A person I didn't know. A person who was obviously very kind. A person who didn't deserve the things I had said about him and thought about him. This is what I learned...to keep my mouth shut. No one I ever cross paths with in this life deserves my judgment or deserves being made fun of or talked about. This was a stranger with good intentions. And it got me thinking, I run my big mouth about the silliest things...About the person with too many groceries in their cart in the check-out line, about someone cutting me off in traffic, about someone walking too slow in a parking lot. I do not know the hearts of those people and I do not know their circumstances. I am no better than anyone else and I am positive I do my fair share to annoy people myself.
I have paid for strangers meals before in restaurants and at drive-throughs. I love being on the giving end of random acts of kindness. But I've never had anyone do that for me. And for it to happen in the way that it did taught me one of the biggest lessons of my life. To shut up. Just shut my mouth. I spent a lot of time praying Friday night. And this is the one thing that kept coming to mind over and over again....
I have never considered myself one to think I'm better than others. I've never considered myself to be judgmental. I know I've blogged about how I hate those things in the past. But obviously I am both of those things. And clearly I have a long way to go. I learned such a valuable lesson this weekend. And it was the most painful lesson I've ever learned. I'm still pained and humiliated by my actions. But I will be better in the future for what a young stranger in Murray taught me this weekend. And I hope my path crosses with his again someday so I can tell him what a great lesson he taught me and how I have become a better person because of it.
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