Who Are You Watching?
Who are YOU watching? No, I don’t mean watching as in creeping around, peeping-tom style looking in people’s windows at night. That’s a whole different kind of “watching”. That kind will get you a first class ticket to watching from behind a set of bars. I’m talking about the role models and the people you watch, consciously or sub-consciously, those who influence you and your decisions in life. You may not have given it much thought, but the people you watch or look up to or seek advice from are critically important to your future.
As I was growing up and especially as I entered my teen years, my mother was my very best friend, confidante’, laughing buddy, role model, Christian influencer and “fixer-of-all-problems”. When I left home to go to college it was the hardest thing in my young life at that point. I was terribly homesick and missed my mom and her ever-ready words of comfort and guidance. I was a very fearful, insecure and “nervous Nelly” type. For this reason I hated being the oldest child. I always wished I had had an older sibling…especially a brother, to look out for me and to “blaze the trail” ahead of me. I hated being the first one to have to step out and experience things alone. Oh not outwardly, I was always pretty good at keeping that under wraps from all but the most discerning eye.
This departure from my mom and the place in which I felt the most secure created a “void” that seemed to follow me pretty much everywhere I went for many years. New things and changes were always the hardest for me. With every new situation and every new job I always found myself gravitating towards the older, more “mother-figures” in the group. In their presence, I felt more secure and safe from the ever-changing, “scary” unknowns abundant in people my own age. I think it also made me feel more like I was with my dear mom, who I still missed so much. Perhaps this is why I have always felt a strong love for senior citizens and a calling to work with and for them in my career.
The people we “watch” and follow have a huge impact and “footprint” in our lives, even if we don’t always realize it at the time. Like a bird gathering bits and pieces from here and there in order to build her own nest, we gather “bits and pieces”, attitudes and values from our “mentors” and those we spend the most time with as we are building the “nest” we call life.
In recent years I have looked back over my life and my nursing career and noticed a very interesting pattern. In all but one of my different jobs, there has been at least 1 person who has filled this “position” in my life. Someone I look up to, whose advice I seek, whose behavior I observe and sometimes model and who I usually hold above others in many ways. In my case, I have been mightily blessed in the fact that I believe God chose all of those women to go along beside me in each of those difficult jobs in much the way my mother would have. Thankfully all these ladies were….and still are, wonderful Christians and very good “role models” and influencers. Whether they knew it or not or even regardless of whether I always was aware of it, I was “watching” them. They were having an impact on my life…..good or bad.
You may be asking, what about the one job where there wasn’t a person for you to “watch” and be guided by. Well, I wondered about that myself, especially since, for the first time in my life, I was almost the oldest one in the large group in which I worked. I came to the conclusion that maybe God had decided it was time for me to be the one “watched”. To help guide those younger and/or in need of comfort like I always had needed. That was a new and rather startling thought for me, and me being me didn’t necessarily feel worthy of that possibility. I now believe, though, that He was introducing me to that as a concept that I needed to embrace.
I think it’s a pretty well-known fact that the values, beliefs and life-styles of the people we “watch” and hold in esteem often become our own over time. That is why it is so critically important that we choose wisely the people we spend the most time with. Each of our days are made up of choices….hundreds of them. They may seem small but when accumulated over time, they can create BIG results…..good or bad.
In my devotions today, I’m reading in 1John: chapter 2. In the footnotes I found something very very important and perhaps “convicting” in one way or another to most of us, myself very much included. It talks about having the right “values” and urges us to be sure that we have GOD’S values and NOT the “world’s” values. It notes that having the “world’s” values is characterized by 3 attitudes:
1). A craving for physical pleasure – a preoccupation with gratifying physical desires
2). A craving for everything we see – wanting and accumulating THINGS; bowing to the god of materialism
3). Pride in our achievements and possessions – obsession with our status or importance
On the opposite side are God’s values, that we should strive for:
1). Self-control
2). A spirit of generosity
3). A commitment to humble service
Then it asked the million dollar question, “do your actions reflect the world’s values or God’s values?”
Obviously, there is much more to the development of our attitudes and values than who we are spending time with and who is “mentoring” us. Whether or not we know Christ as our personal Savior is first and foremost in that development, but WHO we are “hanging” with the most, who we hold on a pedestal, who we seek advice from often determines whether or not we actually ever even find Christ in the first place.
So, this begs several questions……WHO are you “watching”? Who might be “watching” YOU? Do you need to change who you’re watching? Do you need to make changes in your life and make better choices for the benefit of those who might be watching YOU?