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...in just one comment that made you change?
About a year or so ago, I was riding in a car with a friend of mine, and she asked my opinion about a situation and the person in it. I thought that the situation reminded me of similar situations in two books and a movie, and I listed them.
She turned around, looked straight at me, and said, "Katie, I want to know what your opinion is, not the opinions of other people that you are reminded of. What do you think?"
That was it. The demarcation between information-gathering and action-implementing. I miss school desperately, but in one moment, I figured out how spending your life reading and studying without ever taking action was equivelent to staying in NeverLand. Wow. Maybe everyone else knew this already, but everything flipped for me then.
Has anything like that happened to you?
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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And, because this was nice for the last thread and because I think we can trust Hatrack enough, here's a username and password to use if you have a story you don't your name attached to publicly.
Username: Just One Comment Password: hatrack
Posts: 4 | Registered: Mar 2004
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It happened at my last LDS stake conference, which was presided over by President Boyd K. Packer. There was a question and answer opportunity in our leadership session, and I asked President Packer a question. He responded by saying: "you have a flaw." He then told me what my flaw was and how to fix it. No, he didn't tell me to join Hatrack.
I'm working on my flaw.
By the way, whenever I see a thread with the word "anyone" in it, that E.E. Cummings poem pops into my head...the one about: "anyone lived in a pretty how town." And then I can't get that poem out of my head. Now I've got two flaws.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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When I was about four years old, I first encountered Hitler and the holocaust. I was understandably upset, as asked my dad "So we hate Germans, right?" (Thinking that Hitler was one.) When he corrected me, telling me that Hitler was actually Austrian, I said "Oh, okay. So we can hate Austrians then."
He took the moment, then sitting in the car together, to tell me no, we don't do that, it's not right. "We can't hate an entire country for what one man did."
I think that all anti-racism campaigns and programs and education I've ever encountered together are all overshadowed by that one statement. Just because my dad took five minutes to explain to me that we don't do that, it's not right.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:I asked President Packer a question. He responded by saying: "you have a flaw." He then told me what my flaw was and how to fix it.
I LOVE President Packer. I love that he said it straight out, with love I'm sure, and ended with how to fix it. *beams*
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It is a really personal question, I know. If you don't want to say anything straight, there's the handy username listed above. Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Kat, A few years ago, my husband and I were having some issues with money, and I was really angry with him for not getting out into the regular work force. I was telling my best friend(who was there at the moment I met my husband) how I was feeling.
She said, "Oh no, that is so sad. Can't you just think of him as a stay-home dad?"
Those words snapped something in my brain, and I realized that yes, I COULD feel that way. If it were me who was home, getting the kids on and off the bus, alwasy being there if they were sick, etc, there would have been no issue. But if a MAN stays home with kids, he is not working.(Major generalization, please humor me here) Anyway, from that moment on, with my paradigm shift, it has been like the first moments of love every day. I have thanked my friend repeatedly, and she is glad she helped, but did not plan on her words having such power.
So, the short answer is: Yes, I have experienced the one comment phenomenon.
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I can't think of a specific instance in my life, but I am wondering if it is more likely to happen when the person speaking has no idea they are saying something that could profoundly effect your thinking as opposed to someone who is trying to sway you.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I was struggling with something that had happened to me in my past so I talked with a pastor at our church and she hooked me up with another woman who had gone through the same thing. Ninety nine people out of a hundred would have responded, on hearing my story, that it wasn't my fault. Instead, she simply said, "You backslid. It's okay. I did too. But you don't have to again."
That struck me in a way I really needed. I needed to realize that while what had happened *wasn't* my fault, I still had a role in it happening. And that I didn't have to accept that role in the future. Most people would have thought they were comforting by saying it was not my fault, but what was truly comforting was knowing that it didn't have to happen again, because I didn't have to put myself in a place where it could. And I haven't. Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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1) I used to be extremely sarcastic. In a funny way. One of my friends said "well, now you've gone and said that and I have that comment in my mind for the rest of my life." In a way, she was just kidding too, but it got to me and I have endeavored never to make a joke at another person's expense since. I slip up occassionally, but only when people really really deserve it. Um, I mean, I slip up occassionally. But I'm not nearly as bad as I was.
2) I was with my family at Tavern On The Green in NYC. I came back to the table complaining about having to tip a guy in the bathroom for handing me a towel. My grandmother calmly but firmly told me that her husband, my grandfather, had had to do exactly that kind of work for years in order to earn money and I should just tip the guy and remember that any work has honor.
Anyway, it has been said that there's no learning without a violation of expectations. I think these examples we're all posting are instances of a powerful learning opportunity precisely because they strongly violate personal expectations. Our ordered worlds are set on their heads and we learn.
It's a good way to learn if you can stand it.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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I also had an experience in the other direction, from a student who wrote me a letter years after I had taught him. I have mostly worked with at risk kids, and I don't get a lot back because the kids have such a negative view of teachers and other adults. occasionally, though, someone will come back. This young man wrote to me from jail, and sent me a copy of his GED certificate. He said i was the reason he had gotten it, that I told him that one day he would be ready to learn, even if he rejected it now.
It was very powerful to me, and made me realize that my work was worth something.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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They didn't actually make me change, but Slash had some AWESOME one-liners in this thread. especially March 17th at 3:42 am (according to my computer's clock)
Posts: 2112 | Registered: Sep 1999
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I have TWO specific incidents where a single sentence to me made a difference in my life. I think the second one I have shared before, but I will post both:
#1 -- I had rebelled against God and family. I was angry at the world for the death of my father, and had taken off with a truck driver, living with him 24/7 and being on the road, sometimes in the low-life areas, sometimes smoking dope or speed. Not letting my family know where I was, and often times having too much alcohol.
My co-driver boyfriend was a very intelligent man (Vietnam vet, very laid back, somewhat of a atheist, but a very good man -- good at his chosen career, and good for me). We often had stimulating intellectual discussions.
One day during one of those discussions, I said something about "What my church believed" about such-and-such on some theological issue, and suddenly -- very unlike him -- he kind of blew up at me. And he said,
"WHAT church? -- you don't HAVE a church -- you don't HAVE a belief -- you are here with me, doing this crap, and spouting off how religious you are.. you don't HAVE a god.."
It was a total shock to my system. He was absolutely right -- I was living totally in denial - I was fooling myself into thinking I was still the good Christian I had been growing up, yet having absolutely nothing in my life that showed that -- I had walked away from God.
The following week I left him and returned home and began mending fences...
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#2 incident: When my dad was killed -- I mean like MINUTES after I found out via telephone that he had just been murdered, needless to say, I was in shock.
My first reaction was to drive directly to the daily newspaper where I worked at the time. Because I knew they have the police scanners always on, and they would be able to give me answer immediately on just what the f*** happened. I was so emotional, it was something between shock and sheer rage and horror.
So I stepped off the elevator and into the newsroom, and you could have heard a pin drop -- obviously they knew it was my daddy that had just been murdered and that they were furiously writing about in order to hit deadline. I strolled up to the gal who listens to the scanners, and said, "I want to know what happened - now!" As she began to explain to me that dad had made a routine traffic stop, and apparently had been gunned down by the person he stopped, I suddenly interjected the question: "Was he black?" (speaking of the perpetrator).
She suddenly sat upright, looked me right in the eye for a minute, and said: "What does it matter?"
And I felt very ashamed. She was absolutely right -- it didn't matter and I had no idea why I asked. I had never considered myself even the slightest bit bigoted or racist, yet here in my moment of pressure, that is exactly how I reacted.
It has stuck with me forever as one of the defining moments seeing the fault within myself.
posted
Yeah, Bob really hit my head with a hammer in a whinging thread I started...a long time ago, I don't remember when. I don't remember his exact words (though the phrase "we all have our sack of rocks to carry" comes to mind and captures the jyst of it) but it was -exactly- what I needed to hear. Not exactly what I -wanted- to hear, as I didn't like it much *laughs*. Honestly, I think I was a mess and really beating myself up and kind of wanted everyone else to beat me up too, and Bob basically came in and said "who gives a crap about your stupid problems." In a slightly nicer way .
Then there was my mom...*thinks*
"I can understand being stupid once, but I cannot believe I was stupid twice."
Yeah, I'm the second kid. That kind of hurt my feelings, but hell, I don't have any more unplanned kids.
Also, KarlEd said something in a gay marriage thread that really did it for me...I want to find the quote though, I don't think I would be able to sum it up as well as he wrote it.
Posts: 1676 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Some years ago now, when I was involved in a relationship so unhealthy and melodramatic that some of my friends actually felt the need to intervene, one of them grabbed my arm and said, in exasperation, "No one else is going to read your story, Tom."
posted
You know, ludosti said something on Hatrack once that has really stuck with me.
She was talking about the difference between the guys she dated before and Slacker. And that with Slacker, his love didn't feel like a burden.
That completely hit me. That's what I had felt - that love and everything that went with was something I was should do and should want and should be completely happy with, and that there was something wrong with me because I wasn't happy. Well, no - it's possible to love and be loved without it feeling like a burden. That one statement eliminated all the "shoulds".
I'm not sure I ever said thank you for that. Thanks, lusti.
I am not trying to be insensitive, because it doesn't matter. But I am curious.
Reminds me of a "moment" an old professor of mine had. She was a little girl of about eight with her mom waiting for a bus.
There was a black man across the street smoking. My professor, as a child, told her mom, "someone needs to let him know smoking is bad for his health." Her mom replied, "He knows, it is his choice."
At that moment my professor understood what racism was. She remembers understanding that she had assumed the black person didn't know better because he was black. The realization of her own prejudice stuck with her for the rest of her life, and she is not prejudice now.
I always respected her for her own insight.
Posts: 1034 | Registered: Mar 2004
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My comment is so small and unprofound, compared to all of the turnaround moments here, but it means a lot to me.
I have had a very cavalier attitude about the internet. I care very deeply about my internet friends, but it never occurred to me that they would think of me after reading my posts or once we got off of AIM. I figured they just went on their merry way and thought about other things, real life things, I guess. I certainly think about them, when I am offline. This never bothered me, it just never occurred to me that anyone would keep me in their heads long enough...
Anyway, the Just One Comment.
I was in AIM with Jamie and Matt and Jamie wrote: "Jen has the best smoker's voice ever."
Hmf.
Jamie thought about how I sounded on the phone and told Matt about it. It wasn't about my posts or funny urls I send her or anything, it was a real life thing.
I dunno, it just struck me.
Now I am much more careful about what I write, because someone will probably be thinking about it later. Or not.
Posts: 1545 | Registered: May 2002
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Well, I know it's what I pay her for, but my therapist really snapped me out of Neverland with one sentence:
"You are not the person you would have been if your father had stayed, quit mourning the you that would have been that girl, she never existed."
She was absolutely right - I was spending all my time thinking about how awful it was to feel like I'd been abandoned and thinking how my life would have been different and there was no point in it. What does it matter? I can't become her. I can't erase the circumstances that happened and suddenly become a girl that grew up in a loving two-parent household.
When she said it, my mind flashed to a book I'd read (on her recommendation, the girl is good ) called Abba's Child by Brennan Manning. In it he quoted part of Thornton Wilder's play The Angel That Troubled the Waters.
quote:Without your wound where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love’s service only the wounded soldiers can serve.
And that's when I knew that cursing God or sitting around moaning for what might have been is pointless. I may never know for what reason I grew up in the pain and trauma I did, but I do know there WAS a reason.
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If he had been white, would I hold it against all white people? I think it was very important (maybe even God-given) for her to say that to me at that time -- to immediately head off any animosity I might have built toward a race of people.
I have many, many black friends at this time -- not that it matters that they are black. I don't even see any difference between any of us.
posted
kat - Awww. I'm so glad that something that I said was helpful to you (not to mention that it's somehow gratifying to know that people actually hear what I say to them ).
One conversation that changed reality for me was an IM chat I had with my brother several months ago. He told me that he saw me as "the best kind of friend a person could have" and an example of what he wanted to be like. I was stunned. It made me cry. It made me re-examine myself. It has made me try harder in many aspects of my life.
Posts: 5879 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I remember when I was 12 or 13... I was talking badly about my brother to my best friend. You know how sometimes your lips are moving and a part of your brain is screaming "STOP!", but you don't, and sometimes it comes back to bite you, but sometimes it doesn't? This was my best friend's response after I paused for breath. "Gee, Jen, your brother never says anything bad about you."
Really, I can't recall ever saying a negative thing about my brother since.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I used to dress kinda grungy: jeans with holes in the knees, flannel shirts, big t-shirts. Then one day my Dad said to me "Do you know how awfull you look?". I cried later, and got my parents to give me a clothing allowance. I haven't dressed like that since, and I'm pretty picky about what I wear now. And when I think back on it, I did look pretty awfull.
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Belle, I had to save your post. It made my day, and is likely to continue doing so for some time. Thank you. Rain
Posts: 1379 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Way back in the summer of 2001, I was with my then-girlfriend and we were talking about... something. I don't remember what specifically it was, but it had something to do with where I was going next (my undergaduate degree is a co-op program, so every four months I'm somewhere new, and it goes year-round, meaning I have to move all the time), and she said something about me missing my parents; my father in particular. I can't even remember what it was, but I just started bawling. Out of nowhere.
Now, I have a pretty good relationship with my parents, and for the most part, I always have. But up till then, whenever I'd come home from school (typically for a week or ten days), I was invariably ready to go by the end of it. It was too easy to slip back into old habits with them that led to friction and everyone being irritated.
Anyway. So why did I start bawling? Well, I still have no idea what exactly she said, but for some reason it made me realize something I hadn't even been able to admit to myself until right then – that I was deeply, deeply afraid that my father was going to die while I was away and I would lose him without having ever really gotten to know him at all.
See, my dad was born in 1926, and had this whole other life before me that to that point I knew very little about, other than the occasional story about the Korean War or swimming and diving competitively as a teenager or how he met mum in Switzerland. On the other hand, I knew a great deal about my mother and her culture, simply because since dad's from New Zealand I've never really met anyone on his side of the family, but mum has relatives all over the world and whenever we travelled we would meet someone or other. I have three half-brothers in New Zealand who are all grown up and married with children of their own, and they remember me as a pudgy little infant.
The girl just sort of wrapped herself around me and held me for a while, telling me all the while about how healthy dad is and how he's in far better shape than even I am at less than 1/3 his age, and how I still had plenty of time.
Since then I've gotten to know my dad a whole lot better, and I'd like to think he knows me a lot better too. I'm much more open with my parents now, particularly my father. And I finally put my foot down and said that we were going to have to go to New Zealand for a month or two as soon as I graduated.
Unfortunately, that last part looks like it probably won't happen this summer (I graduate this term), but...
Oh, balls.
All right. There's something I have to get off my chest. And don't (((((twinky))))) or anything, just read it and get on with your lives. It'll do me plenty of good just to post it.
...
......
...Dad's got cancer.
Okay, so this isn't a new development. In 1995 he had to have a kidney removed because of a tumor. It wasn't a malignant tumor, but given its presence on his kidney it still wasn't a good tumor (not that such a beast exists). It happened to work out that while he was having surgery with an 80% survival rate, I was vacationing in Greece with my aunt and cousins. Sometimes I think my parents planned that intentionally, but it made for some unpleasant nights for me as I contemplated that looming 20% chance of death. I couldn't, at that stage, wrap my brain around what my life would be like if dad wasn't there anymore. I'm still not sure I can.
Apparently when cancer migrates from the kidney it generally goes to the lung, which is precisely what happened. So this spring dad had surgery to get the tumor off his lung, and that went spectacularly well, they didn't even have to remove any of the lung itself, just the lymph nodes around it. But the kicker is that there isn't any treatment if it comes back. At least, not one that works consistently or well. Damn it, it's enough to make an engineer want to go to medical school...
I realized recently that in all meaningful senses this diagnosis is basically a death sentence, and that I am going to lose him, much sooner than I ever wanted to, and it's just a matter of time. And because the specialist has to see him every three months to monitor his condition, not to mention that he's still in many ways recovering from the surgery (though that didn't keep him from trying to swim a few kilometres earlier this month, like he normally does three or four times a week – that's dad for you), we can't go to New Zealand. Certainly not this summer, and I'm starting to think maybe not ever. But I don't want to have to go and meet my three half-brothers without him, I'm not sure I could handle it. I want to meet them and spend time with them and share in dad's awesomeness with them... but if he's dead it'll be so damn hard...
*sigh*
My parents are being very good about telling me everything, but mum is understandably pretty stressed out. I have to remember to make sure to give her frequent updates on the minutae of my daily life, since aside from dad I'm really all she's got. But still. Dealing with this on top of everything else is getting to be too much, especially since I can't go home at the end of this term. I hope my parents will be able to come up and see me, I know dad wants to, but we'll see what happens...
Sorry, kat, for crapping on your thread. I just had to tell *someone* ...and I don't really have anyone here who can sit with me and just listen this whole thing right now. I have some very close friends, yes, but this being the last week of class in our undergraduate careers, we barely have time to say 'hello' to one another.
...that's two self-indulgent posts in one day. Bah.
*quickly hits 'reply' before thinking the better of it and erasing the post*
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I'm glad you hit reply and didn't erase it. You need to tell people these things, and I'm honored you trust enough to do it here.
I won't hug you or put little (('s around your name, but only because you asked me not to.
You will have my hopes and prayers that you and your Dad have lots of time together. The time for tears is not now. Now is for loving and appreciating each other. Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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twink... Oh. Thanks for telling us. I promise I won't treat you any differently.
A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend of mine about my difficulty asking for help and my subconscious fears about insanity. I talked about my control issues and about the fact that I have to keep myself in control all the time, I always have to understand why I think something or why I feel something or why I say something... I have to know that it's my mind that's causing something and not any feelings or neuroses that might have control over it.
He looked thoughtful and said to me, "Have you ever thought about the fact that because you have to be in control of yourself all the time, that impulse to be in control of yourself is always in control..."
Thinking about the implications of that statement, my mind locked up. I realized that he was right and then tried to assert control over the impulse that was asserting control over me, and my muscles locked and for a moment I couldn't even think. It turned everything on its ear, I had never really thought of it that way before. At this point it's too close to that time to tell what's changed... Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Just thought I should let y'all know. You're one line comments are effective in changing more than just your lives. Thank you for sharing them.
Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Hmm. I can't particularly think of any particular thing anyone has SAID to me that really affected my outlook on life. I do know that I have had several personal EPIPHANIES that have changed my world outlook though.
Posts: 2689 | Registered: Apr 2000
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Twinky, I have to say that while I feel sorrow for your father at this time, I also feel a steep pang of jealousy. However, coming from someone who does not know his father at all even though he sees him on a regular basis, I can say I know what you mean about wanting to really know your father. I'm glad for you that you had that opportunity. That really is an accomplishment I think many strive for, but only the fortunate attain, in such a situation. Thanks for sharing.
Someone recently said something to me that had a large impact. They said something to the effect of, "I don't see any point in talking to you." That made me think about what I was going to do about it. Hopefully, time will tell. Posts: 4 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Why is this important to you? I often (ok about 99.9% of the time) look at these threads as convos among sock-puppets. Whenever I encounter the tear-jerkers, I feel a bit ashamed. A bit put-off. I don't "know" these people. (that's my perspective). I think what bothers me is that there is such a strong (very deep) culture of clever one-upsmanship among these threads that this can translate over (entirely inappropriately) to the personal and emotional regime. I'm probably wrong, but I do have difficulty reading threads like this. I'm all for sharing but sometimes these types of threads come across, to me and my biases, as a "truth or dare" game. A "how scintillating was your last epiphanny"?
posted
Fallow, some people are fascinated by not only the Human condition in general, but specifics, such as like what kind of things can cause major change.
I also tend to believe that you can LEARN from other people.
Also, to many of us, these are not 'Sock Puppets', but friends and colleagues. I have, and I know Katharina has as well, met personally quite a few members of the board, and maintain personal off-board relationships with them as well. This is like a schol roundtable discussion where everyone - friends and just mere peers alike - can gather and discuss. Those who are more personal friends will probably take the interesting things discussed beyond the 'classroom', much like regular students do.
Just because we're just sock-puppets and non-persons to you doesn't mean everyone else feels the same way.
Posts: 2689 | Registered: Apr 2000
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I can see how you might feel there is oneupmanship, and I can't promise that there isn't any here because I don't the motives of the posters. I know it isn't in that spirit that I started the thread.
I see Hatrack...as a place for stories that for whatever reason, rarely get told among our friends and family in person. If you belong to a family or circle of friends in which people discuss these things openly, you have my accolades and envy. Really, I like these threads because I've gathered so much wisdom from the personal stories people share here, because I think these stories do make each of us more real, and because I believe in the power of the stories that we as human beings tell to each other. It's how we make civilization, and how we learn what it means to be a citizen, disciple, a grown-up, a daughter or son, a sweetheart, and a human being.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I just want to refute fallow's post. (Y'all post too quickly for me to keep up!) The very thought seems to cast an ugliness on something that was really great. I reject the ugliness. I affirm the greatness.
I can't think of one myself or I would post it here.
Twinky, I feel for you. I don't have anything to tell you except that your relationship with your father doesn't end with death. My father is as much a part of my life now as he ever was. And maybe even more, though that's sort of weird, I know. But some of the inessentials have been swept away by his lack of physical presence. He's just as big a part of who I am as ever he was. Maybe I see it (and him) even more clearly now than I did when he was alive.
Though I hope you have many more years with your own father while he's living, yet don't worry that he will ever really leave you, because he won't.
Farmgirl, I live about 1,800 km from home right now, but after I graduate that's all up in the air. There's a chance I might wind up considerably further away – twice this far or more. There's also a chance I could cut the distance in half. It all depends on where I finally find a job...
I just hope it's not to much to ask to get to see his home country with him.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I sort've agree with fallow. Clearly, you people are people who have met in person before and are part of a faith which I am not a part of... So often I feel sort've like an outsider. I avoid the deep threads, usually, and stick to the flippant fluff. I don't want this to get into a debate about anything, and the bit about a different faith was by no mean a cheap shot, but that's just kinda how I feel. Lots of relationships and first names and history fly by that I don't really understand.
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) called Abba's Child by Brennan Manning. In it he quoted part of Thornton Wilder's play The Angel That Troubled the Waters.![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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