Tag Archives: affinity

Beckon

Beckon: (v) to make a gesture that summons or bidsDictionary B

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

In the pursuit of granting independence and free will to every person in our society, we may have accidentally created millions and millions of autonomous assholes.

In a season when it seems more important to have made our own decisions rather than to be enlightened and invited to a better conclusion, we are breeding a nursery of bastard ideas.

Here’s reality:

If there are 100 things to know in life–and 100 only–then I am probably acquainted with 15. (Probably true for you, too.)

Of the remaining 85 possibilities, I might have some affinity with 35 others. That leaves 50. With those, I am novice and alien.

So, if 50 percent of the time, I am going to risk my success on my gut “guess,” I am greatly limiting my possibilities for the sake of pride and provincialism.

Sometimes I need to listen to that which beckons me.

  • Maybe it’s a warning sign.
  • It could be overhearing the conversation of someone who’s obviously smarter than me.
  • Or it could be sage wisdom from the ages, written down by a concerned thinker.

But I will guarantee you, my success–and dare I say, yours–is contingent on how well we tune our ears … to the beckoning.

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Affinity

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Affinity: (n) a spontaneous or natural liking or sympathy for someone or something

I think it has a meter–yes, an “affinity meter.”

When I was younger I was more intolerant. My affinity for others was based on three criteria:

  1. Do I like them?
  2. Do they have enough money to contribute to a pizza?
  3. Will they be fun?

Anyone who didn’t fall into all three categories was pretty well nixed from my holy circle of friends. I felt fully justified. After all, who wants to be around someone you don’t like, has no cash flow and is a buzz kill?

I don’t know when this transition occurred, but one day it crossed my mind that people have bad days, bad seasons, bad histories, bad relationships, bad luck and bad karma. Sometimes we catch ’em during one of these “sunken” places on their journey instead of at the top of the mountain. And if you start throwing all the heavy boxes overboard, you will eventually get rid of some excellent treasure.

So as I’ve aged, I have changed my “affinity meter.”

  1. Do I like them?
  2. Do I understand why I don’t like them?
  3. Can I hang around long enough to find out if it would be possible for me to like them?

As you can see, the need for pizza money is gone.

Affinity is the awareness that because nothing is perfect and nobody has it all, we gradually take many people into our lives–to piece together the whole experience of fellowship.