8: Your circle of influence is greater than you know

Years and years ago I was chatting with my sister and she said, “Hey, so Mum thinks you’re a poof”. I was stunned. I had never considered that my mother spoke about me behind my back. When I asked big sister to repeat what she’d just said I had apparently misheard. Mum actually thought I was “…aloof.” And that I couldn’t argue with.

I recall thinking that it was the first time I ever knew that my actions were being observed. I honestly thought I was just bumbling through life, ricocheting off of everyone and everything like a pinball. Apparently not. For as much as I was watching and analysing other people (that sounds way creepier than it really is), others were paying attention to moi.

As recently as yesterday a former work colleague reminded me on Facebook of a story I oft told 20 years ago. What must have happened for that little story to stay with her for that long? I can assure you it was hardly Seinfeld-esque or involved life, death nor untold riches.

WARNING: HUMBLE BRAG FOLLOWS

Some of you may have already heard the now infamous “Car Door” story. The current Mrs Russell came to me fully optioned with a teenage son. For the purposes of this story and to protect his identity I will refer to him only by his full birth name, Ethan Keith Bow. (Google, do your worst). As a cutesy little ritual, before Mrs Russell became Mrs Russell, I would open the car door for her at every opportunity. Please, femo-nazis, I was not devaluing her feminity or trivialising her role as a powerful independent woman and life giver in society. It was just a nice thing to do which she enjoys. So one day on the school run Ethan Keith Bow climbs into the back seat, I open the driver’s door for Vanessa and walk around to the passenger side. The trip is completed and Ethan Keith Bow is delivered to school. As we’re departing the school Vanessa says, “While you were walking around to the passenger side Ethan told me he ‘didn’t know Craig was a gentleman’.” Take some time to laugh, I’ll wait ...

Finished? Then I’ll continue. So, in Ethan Keith Bow’s mind the mere act of opening a car door for a woman makes me a gentleman. If that zero sums the deplorable language I use around the house then that’s fine by me. The reality is I assumed that Ethan Keith Bow didn’t even know my name. Or as least pronounced it G-R-U-N-T. Not a far walk from how his bio-dad thinks of me. HINT: replace the GR with my first initial.

But then I started to wonder what else Ethan Keith Bow is taking notice of. It would be ignorant to assume it was only the ‘good’ stuff and not the ‘fucking awful’ stuff. I summised it was everything. And that has radically modified my behaviour in his presence.

“As individuals, we will be judged in our lives by the totality of our actions. Not one thing will stand out.” Rahm Emanuel 

That may be true at the end but on the way through I think we are constantly judged, reviewed, audited, perceived or compared and therefore every action becomes opportunity to illustrate, educate, encourage and support each other. Especially kids.

I can’t wait until Ethan Keith Bow reads this one.