Clean Up Your Own Toys

“Why worry about things you can’t control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?” - John C Maxwell

Allow me to paint you a picture. Thanksgiving is over. The fifty people who have crammed into my grandparents' house have left, leaving the house with an eerie silence and a whole lot of cleaning to be done.

“Could you help your siblings clean the basement?” mom asked.

I’m thinking: I watched football and read Little Women during this break, I had nothing to do with the mess, but I thought sure I’ll help! How bad could it be?

Turns out… pretty bad. The fifty people came with children and the children made a mess. They were instructed to “clean it up,” and it looked like they did a pretty good job. Except it took approximately four seconds of investigation to discover that they had stuffed every toy (some of the toys I’m just looking at like: “who manufactured that? Is there a kid in the world that wants that? What is it supposed to be?”) in every closet and every basket out of sight as fast as humanly possible. It was going to be a gut job, the kind that took all afternoon. As neither of my siblings nor myself was largely responsible for this disaster we weren’t very happy about our assignment. The stage was set for a responsibility crisis. (explained below) But I started delegating tasks and all was cheerful. For approximately ninety seconds.

Then my little brother promptly begins to melt on the floor and sob, “Via’s not doing anything,”

“I am too.  (The English language can’t properly express the amount of whining in their voices) He’s the one who isn’t doing anything!”

“Come on guys. Don’t worry about whether or not the other is doing their part. Worry about yourself.”  

Useless. I might as well be talking to the wall. But without going through the rest of the story - here’s my point: we were in a situation where none of us were (largely) responsible for the problem and all of us were responsible to fix it. Nobody wanted to do it, and all of us were prone to make sure the others were doing their part. Sound familiar yet?

We all live in a world that is broken, and we’ve played a part - but not a large one. We’re irritated because we feel responsible to fix it, at least in our own small way and when our peers and colleagues aren’t doing their part - it’s enough to get our blood boiling in a hurry. But it doesn’t do any good for us to point fingers when we have responsibilities of our own. I hate dealing with lazy people who won’t contribute. I’m sick of taking classes with such people and suffering because of them. I need a challenge and I’m bored because apparently, eighty percent of my “advanced” class thought that homework was optional. I want to tear my hear out.

But the reality of the matter is this: no matter what you can’t control other people. You can lead a horse to water, you can give advice, you can show them the right thing again and again and again, but you can’t make the horse drink. We should all do our part in helping others be their best selves, but if we haven’t “removed the log from our own eye,” we’re doing ourselves a disservice, we’re doing others a disservice and we’re certainly doing the world a disservice. Don’t waste your time controlling others. You can’t change them. And remember the most powerful way to lead your neighbor in the right direction is by example.

Even in writing these quote essays. I’m trying to set an example and remind my closest friends and educators of important life values. Yet, I am a great hypocrite, for almost all of the values that I preach about I am terrible in executing. Remember the reason. Stop controlling others, because you have got to control yourself. You have plenty of issues yourself. As this doesn’t seem like an appropriate topic to preach on, (Like: worry about your own sins and not everyone else's as I stand over your heads and tell you to do so with a baseball bat in my left hand) I’ve compiled a short bulleted list of my own weaknesses for me to take care of:

- I’m far too introverted when in a new setting and make life difficult for myself by being a total coward.

My cowardice leaves me unwilling to stand up for what is right or what I believe in.

- I’m terribly ungrateful.

- At times I’m a baby and complain as if my life is especially difficult just because I’m tired or had a rough basketball practice.

- I allow events in my life to rub off on others. My mood depends too much on my life and not on the joy of Christ in me. I allow too much negativity and it spreads.

- I don’t represent the gospel of Jesus Christ well at all.

- I’m a lazy bum and often prefer watching sports over writing, doing school work, or at the very least reading, playing the piano, playing with my siblings, or FaceTiming an old friend.

And that’s not the half of it. I’m not beating myself down in these areas, I’m merely cognizant of my weaknesses and seeking to improve in these and other areas. The world is broken. Others aren’t pulling their weight. But what can I do about it? Nothing except to make sure that I am pulling my own. Don’t even try to pull someone else’s load. Lead and guide and help others, but only after you have corrected yourself. It is the only way to make a difference in this world.