Excess Baggage

Recently, a friend had reason to vent to me concerning treatment she had received from a mutual acquaintance, Lady X. Lady X was known to be particularly badly behaved. She tended not to respect people who she felt she was better than and would not even respond to greetings from a particular class of people. My friend routinely provided a service to her and was routinely snubbed, disrespected, spoken to rudely and put in her place by Lady X. My friend had tried to get some of her other clients who were also friends of Lady X to talk to her but had been asked to excuse the behaviour because Lady X was “going through stuff.”

That comment got me thinking, does going through stuff excuse bad behavior?

Sometime ago, my family moved house. I put off packing till the absolute last minute because I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of “stuff” we had accumulated over the 10 years we had lived there. It was a five-bedroom house, and we had acquired things to fill it up. There was even one room that started out as a study but ended up as a storage room for unused items. It took two people, one full day to empty that one room out! Ahghh! It was no fun at all! The impending move meant that we had to take stock of our “stuff.” We were moving into a smaller house so there was no luxury of an entire room dedicated to things we had nowhere else to shove! As we took stock, we found many things that we had held on to and yet not used in many years. Some items had never even been opened. Some other items had been lying there, unused and yet I had gone out and bought similar items when the need arose, completely oblivious to the fact that I had, in my own house, something that could have done the job!

Although the fact that we had excess baggage was revealed and possibly magnified by the pressure of moving, moving was not the cause of the excess baggage.

So, to come back to the issue at hand, going through stuff does not excuse bad behaviour. I think Lady X’s character just leaves a lot to be desired, period. If she was ‘nicer’ when things were going well, then she had been living behind a façade. A person’s true character doesn’t show until something comes along that causes him or her to forget about maintaining the façade. It has been said that crises do not develop character, but crises reveal character. When the pressure is on, who you are, who you really are, along with all your excess baggage, is revealed.

I suspect that over time, Lady X had acquired airs. Perhaps she had always felt certain people were not her class and actually would have liked to put them in their place. But since “things” were going well, she could afford to be magnanimous in her dealings with them. Now, “things” were not going well, so magnanimity had been thrown out the window…

I am not belittling whatever stuff she is going through but I think we 

all owe people simple courtesies. And anyway, everyone is going through something…just ask people, you’ll be shocked the load the man or woman next to you is carrying! Abi, you, are you not going through something?

In Phillipians 2:3, the Bible says:  Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves.

If we esteem others better than ourselves, we will be courteous. If we are striving to live in accordance with God’s will, we will be courteous. A God-fearing person will naturally be courteous.

So please, regardless of what you are going through, simple courtesies will not kill you. Be kind. Be respectful. Greet. Respond to greetings. Say please. Say thank you. Smile. They cost nothing but they do make the world a better place.

And by all means, take stock of your houses. Perhaps you have acquired things you don't need (whether by purchasing them or by receiving them as gifts). Please give out anything that is currently not adding value to your life - it could be stuff you have not used in six months, it could be a year, but instead of having it lie useless in your house, give it out so someone else can benefit from it.