Love Doesn’t Boast

Life isn’t so straightforward (I prefer that to saying it’s hard) and you will experience a good amount of challenges on your journey. Sometimes it gets so bad that you just want it to end no matter the consequences.

This is why when the reverse happens and things go well you can’t help but give your biggest smile. Sometimes laughter comes involuntarily. At this point you realize that you can’t keep it to yourself any more and you have to tell someone. This is where the difference comes in.

You go to someone and start telling them how that promotion you’ve always wanted has finally come through and you don’t think theirs will come through because they aren’t as qualified as you. Your big car has finally arrived and you tell your friend they need to upgrade to a higher standard like yours. You’re just stating facts so what’s the big deal, right?

Well, if you’re aiming to get everyone not to like you then there’s no problem. It’s the perfect approach. If, on the other hand, you just want to share the good news so that you can celebrate with someone then you need to choose your words wisely.

It shouldn’t be about putting the other person down but getting them to be happy for you and genuinely celebrate with you.Making others feel inferior to you or your accomplishments defeats the purpose. It also reveals some not-so-nice things about you. Your confidence and feeling of self-worth may actually be pegged on those achievements or possessions and having anyone say anything negative about them or not saying anything at all would ruin your confidence so you subconsciously tell whoever cares to listen so as to get more people talking about it while at the same time shooting down any objection one may have by reminding them of their ‘shortcomings’ compared to you. It is wrong on so many levels and is quite counterproductive.

I’ve had quite a number of achievements of my own and I know more are coming (somebody shout Amen!) but rubbing it into someone’s face isn’t the way to celebrate them. My son loves computer games and he’s quite good at cracking them. He’s had to teach me most of them so that we can play together. If I do win a round I can’t tell him how bad he is at it so he should quit. I rarely even talk about the winning but encourage him to play better every day.

I don’t call my sisters or friends to boast about something I’ve done. I let them in on the news and somehow they notice that it’s celebration and not bragging. They do the same with their own news as well and we celebrate each other without putting the other down. How you put the message across matters a lot andmakes all the difference.

If you truly love someone you want them to be happy for you when something good happens to you but you should also remember that the (said or unsaid) message behind your news will affect their response toward you. Making them feel bad about themselves doesn’t cut it with love. Choose your words wisely and you will definitely get a genuine good response and you get to keep your friends in the process.