You’ve been at the office all day, as soon as you get home and walk in the door, you’re immediately hit with a dozen questions by a loved one. How do you react? What’s your initial feeling inside? If you’re like me, you can sometimes feel a little… annoyed. Although I don’t really like that word—annoyed—because it seems a little self-righteous. Sort of like the word tolerance—like I am so much better,  that it’s my “duty” to tolerate people. In my opinion, if I’m tolerating something, I’m coming from a place of being better than and not equal to. So I need to watch that. If I’m truly in a serene and place of inner-peace, nothing can throw me off. Although when a deer almost ran across the road in front of me on the way home from the gym the other night, that pretty much threw me off.

Part of the St. Francis Prayer is, “Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted – to understand, than to be understood – to love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.” That means try to understand that maybe the person is excited to see you, has been thinking about these things all day and wants your opinion—or just to listen. Likewise, if you’re the one asking all the questions, try understanding that your loved may like to slowly unwind when they get home. But by all means, PAY ATTENTION TO ONE ANOTHER! Especially in the first 90 seconds. [Read more…]