I am a private person. Truly. I know that it’s more than slightly ironic coming from someone who has a blog that has openly discussed some of my past struggles, but it’s true. I think that in the culture today there is an expectation of complete transparency and that without this transparency there is something that is “hidden”.
I would like to venture that it is not necessarily better to be open with the world about EVERYTHING. There are things that are right to keep private. And it is not deceitful to keep certain aspects of your life to yourself, or within a close circle of friends.
I am certainly not advocating that it is ever ok to be deceitful about personal matters but there is a nuance between honesty and deceit that people miss sometimes. Just because you choose not to divulge certain aspects of your life and/or who you are does not mean that you are being deceitful. It merely means that you can choose which pieces of yourself that you share with people. People who are not directly (or sometimes even indirectly) affected by the information you choose to withhold do not inherently have a right to know it.
Now there are many, many aspects of my life (particularly my past struggles) that I am incredibly open about. I do this for several reasons. It lets people know where I have come from and thus understand more of who I am. Secondly, and my main motivator, is that I hope that someone will gain a valuable lesson from some of my past mistakes or experiences. I tell people things so that our relationship may deepen to new levels of understanding. I like to learn more about them as well so that we can grow closer.
That being said, there are few people who are let into the inner sanctum of my being. Who truly know my soul deep down. I think this is good and how it should be. Not every relationship has to be deeply involved and there are many things to gain and benefit from in a more superficial relationship.
Maintaining a sense of privacy enables me to maintain the boundaries that keep people who should not be deeply involved in my life firmly on the superficial level. This is not wrong. For instance, there are many, MANY aspects of who I am and what I do that I do not talk to my children about. It is not beneficial or needed. My parents are privy to certain things about my life but certainly not all of them. Members of my church may know me on the surface and/or know OF me and on the whole that is enough. This is not to say that I do not HAVE deeper relationships. I do. They are few and precious and have been developed over a number of years.
When I feel the pressure sometimes to form deeper relationships with everyone, I am glad to know that Christ himself found close communion with a smaller group of men. He did not seek to become intimately close and honest about his every thought to the thousands of people that came to hear him speak or watch him perform miracles. Jesus had boundaries. These boundaries enabled him to keep certain aspects of his life away from people who didn’t need to know them or to whomever he didn’t feel like letting in. I know I write of boundaries a lot but they are so key to maintaining the correct balance in your life and relationships.
I do not feel the need to be close to everyone I meet. I don’t feel the need to even let people I am closer with know every detail of my life and thought process. This is not deceptive. I do not seek to deceive people in the slightest. I simply feel that I have a right to privacy. There are many things that will never be shared with another soul. It’s between me and my Savior. And that is ok too.
No comments:
Post a Comment