What a Life!

I got up this morning at 5:00 a.m. because I knew I needed some quiet time to think. I got out one of my favorite books – The Joy Diet by Martha Beck.

The second chapter is about telling yourself the Truth. You’re supposed to ask yourself what you’re feeling (in this case, angry), and then whether the story you’re telling yourself about something is correct and replace it with a more accurate story, if necessary. Here are the results:

While [Un]Gracious Guest may be complaining that she does not feel “welcome” in the home of [Un]Gracious Host, I think it might be more accurate to say that she may not feel “comfortable” staying in the home of [Un]Gracious Host.

Let’s say you’re traveling to a faraway city and you need a place to stay. You happen to have friends who live in that faraway city and you call them to see if they’re in town and if they can recommend a place for you to stay. Faraway Friends are ecstatic that you are coming to visit their city and offer their home as a place for you to stay. They would love to see you, and would just be thrilled if you would stay with them.

One catch, though – they don’t have a spare bed for you to sleep on. That’s right…you’d be sleeping on the floor. They’re up front with you about that so that you can make an informed decision about where you will be most comfortable staying.

The fact that they do not have a bed for you to sleep on does not mean that they’re not making you feel welcome in their home. That’s right – it’s not that you’re not welcome to stay there, it’s that you might not feel comfortable staying there.

I mean, in this situation, [Un]Gracious Host is welcoming [Un]Gracious Guest into their home so that [Un]Gracious Guest will not have to stay in a homeless shelter or sleep in her car. It is the home of [Un]Gracious Host, not the home of [Un]Gracious Guest. It is not the responsibility of [Un]Gracious Host to make her home such that [Un]Gracious Guest feels more comfortable in the home of [Un]Gracious Host than she would in her own home.

If there are things that [Un]Gracious Host knows [Un]Gracious Guest does in her own home that would get on the nerves of [Un]Gracious Host if [Un]Gracious Guest were to do them in the home of [Un]Gracious Host, making [Un]Gracious Host very short-tempered very quickly, it is only fair for [Un]Gracious Host to let [Un]Gracious Guest know what those things are beforehand so [Un]Gracious Guest can make an informed decision as to where she will feel most comfortable staying. Just like telling someone you don’t have a bed for them to sleep on. That, in fact, is what [Un]Gracious Host has tried to do and for which [Un]Gracious Guest has accused [Un]Gracious Host of “not making her feel welcome in their home.”

They say “There’s no place like home” for a reason. Even though I still can say I’ve spent more years of my life living with my parents than living on my own and while I love my parents very much, I must confess that I feel more comfortable staying in my own home than in theirs. When I go to visit them, I try to go along with how they do things because, after all, I am staying in their home. There is a short list of things that they do differently than us and drive us crazy (and they know what they are), while they make a noble effort to do those things less, we also make a noble effort to exercise tolerance. That’s just how it is.

There’s no place like home. Feeling welcome in someone else’s home and feeling comfortable in someone else’s home are two different things. Feeling more comfortable in someone else’s home than in your own home is not a reasonable expectation. There may be nice things that they have that you don’t have – like a swimming pool or a big kitchen. But ultimately, you are going to feel more comfortable in your own home. Period.

So let’s get this straight: If [Un]Gracious Guest does not think she will feel comfortable in the home of [Un]Gracious Host, she is welcome to make other arrangements. If she finds a place where she can stay and where she thinks she will feel more comfortable, by all means, she should feel free to stay there. More power to her! She is under no obligation to stay in the home of [Un]Gracious Host.

If [Un]Gracious Guest decides that, in spite of her reservations about [Un]Gracious Host’s rules, she would, indeed, like to stay in the home of [Un]Gracious Host, there will be one more thing that [Un]Gracious Guest needs to understand and accept if she is to stay in the home of [Un]Gracious Host: namely, that if you have a problem with something that [Un]Gracious Host does, you need to take up that issue directly with [Un]Gracious Host rather than going behind her back and complaining to others and making all sorts of accusations that are not true. There is nothing wrong with saying you don’t feel “comfortable” in someone’s home and explaining why. There is something wrong with accusing them of “not making you feel welcome” when, in fact, they have made every effort to make you feel welcome in their home. It’s called, being a Gracious Guest.