I Am Obnoxious

It used to be, not so long ago, that I felt quite proud that I am obnoxious. I would have trumpeted the fact from here to Zimbabwe without a hint of remorse or regret that I was so. Because, to be honest, I felt that it was only the perception of other (lesser) people that I was obnoxious. People who were wishy-washy in their beliefs and opinions; people who wouldn’t know how to defend what they believed if their lives depended on it; people who were just wrong while I was right and were angry at me for being so. (You can’t know how it hurts to acknowledge how judgmental and prideful I can be.)
But recently I have learned a valuable lesson: I am, in reality, not just perception, obnoxious.

Now, I am not all the time. Certainly not. But there definitely are times that I am and far too many, I fear. And it has not turned out well for me, not at all. Because there are people who I should be a help to, people I should be able to love and serve and make a difference to, but I can’t because my obnoxiousness has driven them from my life.

Let me just state, first and foremost, that I know it is unequivocally important that I continue to stand up for things that I know to be right. I cannot be timid about doing so. And no matter how kindly I do so, by standing up at all, there will be people who dislike me, who find me obnoxious. And that, frankly, is their problem.

But I have realized some important things recently:
1) I need to learn to take a stand in such a way that doesn’t shut down conversation or make people feel like I am belittling them or their views. I do know how to do this, because I can recall having done it from time to time, but I far too often let my passions get aroused and slip into being overbearing, intimidating and kinda jerky.
2) I have far too many firm opinions. I mean, I have firm, unmovable opinions about everything – how big a person’s house should be, the maximum amount of money you should ever spend on a pair of shoes, whether or not baby girls should have their ears pierced, etc., etc. It’s okay for me to have these opinions for myself and what I want to do with my life, but why do I have such firm opinions about these things where other people are concerned? While I believe in absolute truth, are there not conversely many situations and areas in life in which there is no one right answer? And don’t my own firm opinions end up changing from time to time?
3) I have opinions about things I know little to nothing about. In all honesty, there is nothing in this whole world that I am an expert on and there are too many subjects where I have a little bit of knowledge and jump right to making up my mind about stuff before gathering enough information. Because I am intellectually lazy and I don’t want to gather a bunch of knowledge. I want to know a little bit and then make a fool of myself, apparently, when asserting my opinions as incontrovertible fact. As Alexander Pope said, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.”
4) I think when we have such passionate, strong opinions about everything and we talk about everything as if it were vastly important and we know we are so right about it, it diminishes our credibility and the power with which we can speak to what we do know, for a fact, to be true.
5) I really should have spent more time listening to, paying attention to and working on emulating my mother as I was growing up. I had a wonderful conversation with my mother yesterday. She is so patient and kind with me, very forgiving and encouraging, positive and optimistic and just a good, kind soul who loves people. And she is what I want to be – a person who knows what she knows, but knows what she does not know and is interested enough in other people to not just let them speak, but to ask them questions and try to learn from them.

6) Ultimately, I think the only way to know the truth about anything is to study it out, pray about it and have the information confirmed as true by the Holy Ghost. The things I know I know – that is how I have come to know them. But what good can I do for others with this knowledge if my manner is off-putting?

So I am looking to change. The first step has been taken – I realize the need to change. The next step is to pray for help and to seize opportunities to practice a different way of being. I know (this is one of those things I know I know) that if I let Him, Christ will help me to be different, to make this one of many changes to be made in my journey of becoming a new creature through the atonement of Jesus Christ.