Competition over cupboards

Okay, let me say it.  I had some very beautiful cupboards in my house.  I waited more than 20 years for those cupboards and once they were installed I moved away to another state.  Okay, that’s out of the way.

Now, let me tell you something else.  In my effort to talk more to humans –that’s all part of coming out of isolation, that talking to other humans part–I need to learn to celebrate other people’s accomplishments without telling them my own.  I should know how to do this because my mother was so accomplished at celebrating others’ accomplishments, large and small.  I think it’s human nature, though, to compete.  Maybe we excuse it as just making conversation, but deep down, we know it’s competition.

So I had about a dozen people at my house.  One man dug out his phone and showed me photos of his newly remodeled kitchen.  I said the photos were nice and I wasn’t lying, they were nice, but then I just had to show him pictures of my old kitchen.  I think I made him sad and now I think about it,  it makes me sad too.  I should have oohed and aahed and told him how talented he was to install those cupboards and then I should have stopped and waited for him to talk some more.

This being around humans thing is complicated.  I’m finding people would much rather be listened to than talked to.  I’m finding there’s a real absence of genuine praise and admiration amidst humans, except amidst shysters and that’s a deficit that makes us vulnerable to shysters.

So after this I’m making more of an effort to not rain on other’s parades, to celebrate them more and me less.  Bear with me, humans, as I learn your ways.