I was skimming Facebook a while back and someone posted a link to an article by Seth Adam Smith. Maybe you’ve seen it too. The article, “Marriage isn’t for me,” written by Smith, a husband who made that somewhat startling discovery after a year and half of marriage.

I remember thinking, here we go, another couple grown apart, and now the husband, probably going through some kind of a crisis decided he wanted to enjoy whatever he thought he was missing.

So I opened the link and began to read this guy’s story. It wasn’t anything like I thought. He had re-discovered the advice his dad had given him when he had experienced cold feet right before his marriage. His dad told him, “Marriage isn’t about you, it isn’t for you. It’s all about the one you love.”

How often do we forget that point? I often do. And not just with marriage, either.

Whenever I find myself upset about events, things not going my way, angry with someone, I have to force myself to stop! It isn’t about ME. When I only see everything though my perspective, those are the times I struggle the most.

When I’m negotiating, things aren’t going well, no end in sight, it’s at those times I need to stop and think about the other person’s perspective. It isn’t all about me.

Some of you who know me well may be thinking I couldn’t have written that last sentence!
I’m the guy that used to do the hand thing. You know, where one fist represented me and the other hand circling the first was the world. Yes sadly, it’s true.

I did that for… gasp… for laughs. I really thought it was hysterical! Weird sense of humor? Yeah maybe, after all I also would deliberately mispronounce words when I was in the company of teachers just to see how quickly they would correct me. I thought that was funny too. My wife, a former teacher and obviously embarrassed for me, tried to get me to stop by telling me those teachers all thought I was a idiot. It only made me do it more.

OK Back to my point. I was slow to understand. I get it now.
I admit to the world – “It’s not about me!” There I said it.

You may be thinking, this is too simplistic. It can’t really work in the “real” world.
OK, I won’t argue.

But, once I figured this out. (decades later) it has worked for me.

This simple recognition pulls me back into reality. Not my perception of me first reality – real reality, the one that really exists.

Because after all, reality isn’t what you think.