Dirty Laundry

Jimmy Harmon

Follow · April 3

A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside. "That laundry is not very clean; she doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap." Her husband looks on, remaining silent. Every time her neighbor hangs her wash to dry, the young woman makes the same comments. A month later, the woman is surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and says to her husband: "Look, she's finally learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this? " The husband replies, "I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows." And so it is with life... What we see when watching others depends on the clarity of the window through which we look.

**********************************************************************************

The one thing I noticed growing up was the unbalance of my mother correcting me about how I cleaned and left my things out but I could say nothing about the clutter she left everywhere.  In my first year of college, my mother decided to solve the "clutter" problem by becoming the mad hider.  Anything that belonged to anybody accept her she would hide their belongings.  I happened to have a day when I had a big assignment due early.  I asked permission from my dad to leave my books by the door so I could grab them and go.  Permission was given.  The next morning the books were nowhere to be found.  I was furious.  I learned two things that morning.  My mother was very pleased with herself by the distress she had caused and my father had no say whatsoever as to what happened in the house.  She kept seeing the clutter left by everyone else but was blind to her own messes.  I watched through my life as these same types of scenarios happened over and over again.  I am now learning to pay attention to my own behavior rather than trying to correct someone else.