Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I learn how to raise someone else’s power by losing some of my own.

I once received a call in my office from a gentleman named Brian. Brian worked for a company up the road half an hour away.

There was something weighing heavy on Brian’s mind. He didn’t sound like himself on the phone. He spoke slowly and struggled with his words. He wanted to come to the building and talk about something
that had happened in the past.

I wasn’t sure what Brian wanted to discuss. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to talk with Brian. It seemed like something was wrong. I didn’t like talking to people about things that were wrong. For some reason, I agreed to set aside some time and talk with Brian. Something tugged at me. This seemed important to Brian, and I felt a tinge of guilt  about blowing off something that seemed so important to another person.

Brian came in at the appointed time and we went to an empty room where we would have privacy. I closed the door and we sat next to one another.

Brian talked about something that had happened a few months prior to that day. I really cannot remember the details as I sit here and write. The topic was something about how he had told me that his company could deliver a product for a price. Later, it happened that his company could not deliver as promised. That explanation sounds pretty simple. The real occasion was not so black and white.

While Brian was recalling the occasion to me, I kept thinking, “Oh, Brian, that was nothing. I understood what was happening. I never felt as if your company and you were lacking in integrity. There was no offense. There is no reason to be apologizing.”

Somehow I managed not to say any of this. Somehow I managed not to apologize while Brian was apologizing.

I felt odd listening to Brian speak. This “little nothing thing” was important to Brian. He had decided that.
I did not have the power to decide that the event was not important to him.

This was an enlightening and debilitating thought. I could not decide what was important to other people. The other person alone had the power to decide what was important to them.

I am not sure how or why I had the thought that I could control  the thoughts of other people. I don’t think that I ever told myself that I could control that. Nevertheless, I was living as if I had that control.

Giving up the idea of control was liberating. I no longer had to think about what should be important to other people. I no longer had to correct people when they had the mistaken  impression of what was important to them. I had a lot less to think about for others and more energy to think about what was important to me.

One of the things that become important to me was other people. These other people became true  individuals with a real freedom of choice. They were much more powerful than they used to be. I like being around powerful people. Somehow I had raised their power by reducing my own. That is amazing in some ways.